#qui-gon guiding anakin so he knows where he can stand

[codythecheshirecat]

The Cassandra Problem

Summary: Obi-Wan is on Mustafar one moment, and Naboo the next. And, well, thirteen years in the past. Presented with an opportunity to change the future, he takes it.

AO3 Link

“You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!”

I loved you, Obi-Wan thinks. He turns his back on the raging, burning remains that are-- were-- Anakin Skywalker. Whether he survives, makes it off this horrible planet, Obi-Wan refuses to consider. Anakin Skywalker is dead. Anakin is dead, and with him everything that Obi-Wan has ever known. He staggers back to Padme. Every step is more painful than the last. What is left? The galaxy is collapsing around him, falling into darkness and death. Padme-- dear Padme, much, much too young to have so much of the galaxy resting on her shoulders as she’s taken it on throughout her life and this Force-forsaken war-- is still alive. He can feel her lifeforce, faded and pained as it is.

I loved you. He takes another step. Sucks in another breath. Everything hurts-- physically, emotionally. The acrid air stings his lungs and throat just as much as the pain of betrayal. He takes a step-- and trips over his own foot. Obi-Wan hits the ground hard, legs giving out the moment they sensed weakness; he lays on the ground where he dropped, without energy to even shift into a slightly more comfortable position. Too exhausted to even move his face from where it rests against the heated rock.

The world spins. He has to get up, he has to get to Padme, he has to get back to Bail and Master Yoda and do something, anything. Yet it’s so much simpler to just stay here. He’s been running off of nothing for weeks, after all. Stretched thin by a million obligations. Surely… surely… he can just take a moment.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes.

He opens them.

And things are… different.

The air isn’t choked with smoke and burning chemicals. The Force doesn’t sing with pain and death. His physical pains are different; the wrong places, the wrong levels of pain. Instead of stone, he lays on metal. It’s all wrong, somehow, impossibly, and Obi-Wan knows without a doubt where he is.

Theed.

Naboo.

Obi-Wan pulls himself to his feet. This is impossible. Incredibly impossible. His feet move without his permission, his lightsaber comes to his hand without complaint and ignites. It’s the wrong lightsaber, the one he lost in this fight. The Kyber Crystal knows this; picks up on the differences between the Obi-Wan it’s used to and the one that stands here and now in a body over a decade younger.

But they have the same goal, and Obi-Wan only asks of it what it can do, and he throws them back into the fight between Maul and Qui-Gon with gusto. If this is real-- and it must be, he’s never had a vision or dream like this before-- then this is something he can change. He can fix this.

Maybe he can fix everything.

So he fights harder. He slips into that subspace of battle meditation, letting the Force guide his movements and instinct and experience guide the rest. He knows this fight. He knows this opponent. Block a strike. Take a step back. Spin, dodge, parry.

Maul gets in between him and Qui-Gon. That’s his strategy, though, to split his opponents apart to take them down one by one. Masters and their Padawans tend to rely on each other, after all. Use each others’ abilities to augment their own. Split apart, they can’t protect each other. Split apart, they can’t help each other.

Obi-Wan bites back a snarl (one of frustration and exhaustion more than anything else) and shoves Qui-Gon back with the Force. If he can’t get between Maul and Qui-Gon, then he’ll make sure Qui-Gon is far enough away that he can’t be injured. Parry again. Block out the darkness that radiates off of Maul.

Block out Qui-Gon’s confusion. Jump back. He brings his blade up to his left to catch Maul’s, then whips it around to the right to catch the second blade. His heartbeat pounds, his blood sings in his veins, every step is easier than the last. A fight against an enemy Obi-Wan knows. A fight against an enemy he can do. Fighting is all he’s done for the past three years, fighting enemies and winning battles and losing so, so much. Fighting is mixed into his blood and baked into his bones. Jedi are meant to be peacekeepers, but Obi-Wan barely remembers what that means anymore.

He pushes Maul back, advancing despite, technically, being on the defensive. Obi-Wan knows Maul is leading him as much as Obi-Wan is pushing him back, of course, but it doesn’t matter. This is one fight that Maul cannot win. Obi-Wan parries again, dodges a kick from Maul, and throws himself between Maul and Qui-Gon. His blade slashes against Maul’s, deflecting it but not stopping it, and they both use the momentum to slash at each other again, and again, blue against red.

They find a stalemate at the energy shields. This is both familiar and new; Obi-Wan takes comfort in that he’s between Qui-Gon and Maul, rather than Qui-Gon being in between. Obi-Wan takes a calming breath in, staring levelly at Maul through the red energy shield. Maul glares back, pacing the small space he’s strapped in in-between two energy shields of his own.

“Obi-Wan!” Qui-Gon shouts.

Obi-Wan doesn’t look back. His heart pangs with long-familiar grief. How he longs to have a conversation with Qui-Gon. But this isn’t the time. If he looks back now he’ll be unable to turn back to Maul. So he keeps his gaze forward at his worst enemy.

And the energy shields fall. Obi-Wan lunges, hoping for a moment of weakness on Maul’s part, but Maul blocks his strike easily. The game is on once more. They dance around the reactor shaft, hopping and twirling and just barely dodging death. Maul kicks his feet out from under him. Obi-Wan falls, twisting, and rolls out of the way of Maul’s saber strike aimed at his neck.

He kicks his own foot out, trying to catch Maul’s knee, but Maul slips out of the way. Qui-Gon appears, though, striking at Maul’s right arm. Maul twists and brings his blade up to catch it, and Obi-Wan takes the opportunity to lurch up and plunge his blade forward. Maul catches it, twisting the blade up and around, and Obi-Wan takes a step back. Obi-Wan grits his teeth.

He and Qui-Gon strike together, Qui-Gon high and Obi-Wan low. Maul deflects Obi-Wan’s blade, baring his teeth, and Obi-Wan has no choice but to let his blade slide against Maul’s and use the momentum for another strike. Qui-Gon’s blade slices cleanly through Maul’s lightsaber, and one half drops to the floor, useless, the second blade dealt with. Maul snarls, and with a Force augmented kick, Qui-Gon is sent skittering across the room and over the side of the reactor shaft.

Obi-Wan brings his blade up again. Qui-Gon can handle that. He’s fine. His blade clashes against Maul’s, their momentum coming to a sudden stop, and it becomes a battle of strength and wills. Single blade against single blade, locked together.

“You,” Maul hisses. “Are not what I expected.”

Despite everything, Obi-Wan grins. “You have a habit of underestimating people.”

Maul’s eyes narrow. Obi-Wan is thrown back with a Force push. He catches himself, regaining his footing, and brings his lightsaber up to block a jumping strike from Maul. He leaps to the left, letting Maul’s momentum continue to send him forward, and twirls. He aims a side slash at Maul’s chest-- one that would bisect him through the chest if it landed. Maul’s lightsaber comes up to block it with as much strength as their previous clash. Obi-Wan can’t pull the slash or redirect it, and letting it land will only result in a jarring, sudden stop.

So he turns his lightsaber off, keeps the momentum, and lets his hand pass by Maul’s lightsaber block. He takes half a step closer, extends his arm just a bit more, and ignites his lightsaber. Half a second. The blue blade pierces Maul’s chest, through skin and bone and organs. Blue eyes meet yellow-red. Obi-Wan grits his teeth and drags his lightsaber blade through Maul’s chest and out the side.

Filled with a grim, determined satisfaction, he almost doesn’t feel it when Maul cleaves his own blade through his upper arm.

He sees it-- oh, he sees it, how could he not see his right arm fall to the floor?-- and can only mourn the loss of his lightsaber as it falls to the floor with his severed arm. He must have gotten enough of Maul’s chest, though, because Maul simply collapses, gurgling and coughing up blood as he tries to breathe. Obi-Wan calls his own lightsaber to his left hand. He takes a few steps back, out of the range of Maul’s lightsaber.

Maul glares at him. It had been a terrifying gaze, back when he was truly a padawan, filled with so much hatred and darkness. It had been terrifying once more when he’d discovered Maul was still living (and was once more trying so fiercely to kill him, to destroy him). Now all he feels is exhaustion.

Maul’s personal vendetta against him is nothing compared to the utterly impersonal destruction of the Jedi Order by Palpatine. (To know that Palpatine wants to kill the Jedi simply because he can, because they are an obstacle in his way, is worse than any hatred borne of direct, personal, actions). Maul has fought him and Qui-Gon on Theed because he was instructed to. A pawn, doing as told. Terrible, yes, impersonal, but connected to the greed-influenced actions of the Trade Federation (and the knowledge that Obi-Wan now holds of Palpatine’s plans). He’d returned in a now-defunct future to make Obi-Wan’s life hell and as bad as that had been he had understood how Maul had come to the twisted conclusion that he had deserved it all.

So Obi-Wan looks into Maul’s eyes and can’t feel anything more than exhaustion. He looks at his severed arm. With how many people I’ve dismembered it’s a real bit of irony, he muses. The pain hasn’t quite caught up yet. He’s lucky lightsabers cauterize wounds, or else both he and Maul would most certainly be dead right now.

Obi-Wan hangs his lightsaber on his belt. He can feel Qui-Gon’s lifeforce in the distance-- he must’ve fallen quite a bit, but he’s definitely conscious and not dying. Less injured than Obi-Wan, certainly. He lets out a breath and sits, heavily, on the floor.

Maul continues to glare. Obi-Wan ignores it. “Your Master won’t let you live past a week, you know. You’ve failed. Even if you aren’t taken into custody, he won’t think you’re a worthy apprentice anymore.”

Maul spits blood.

“He’s already replaced you.” At least, Obi-Wan is pretty sure that Dooku has already Fallen.

The oldest clones had been ten years old when he’d found them. And he’d found them ten years from now. Dooku had been, undoubtedly, involved with the creation of the clones, even though they hadn’t figured out exactly how. No matter. Obi-Wan has an idea about that.

He continues. “If you tell me everything you know about him, I’ll make sure you’re hidden from him. Not as a prisoner of the Jedi or the Republic,” he adds, when a sneer forms on Maul’s face. “Anywhere. Free. So long as you abide by the laws. You just need to help me take Palpatine down.”

Maul’s sneer changes into something Obi-Wan doesn’t recognise. “It is… inevitable.” He rasps.

Obi-Wan’s jaw tightens. “We have ten years until its culmination. A direct testimony from you-- and Mother Talzin, perhaps-- is likely to be enough to at least hurt his reputation. He needs people to believe in him. If he has no support, his deception doesn’t work.”

Maul shakes his head. “Fool.”

“If we have no hope, then we have nothing.”

Maul’s grip tightens against his lightsaber. Obi-Wan tenses. But Maul just laughs, a broken, wheezing thing. “You cannot win, Obi-Wan Kenobi. And you cannot hide me from him. But he will not kill me. I won’t let him.”

“Wait!” Obi-Wan gasps, lurching forward, but it’s too late.

Maul runs his lightsaber through his own neck.

He spent ten years hating me after I bisected him, Obi-Wan notes. Refusing to die. And now he’s just… was he really that scared of Palpatine?

Obi-Wan stays there, staring blankly at the lumps of flesh and bone in front of him. His own arm. Maul’s decapitated head and his half-bisected body. A culmination of everything and nothing, ten years of history that never happened gone. Ten years of history that never can happen. He should be happy. Maul and Savage can’t torture him or kill Adi Gallia; Maul can’t create the Shadow Collective or take over Mandalore. 

He isn’t happy.

He’s still like that when Qui-Gon makes his way back. “Obi-Wan!”

Obi-Wan looks at him. Qui-Gon runs over, falling to his knees in front of Obi-Wan. He looks him over, staring at the stump of his arm and the bruises forming on his face. His hands come up to rest on his shoulders, and then he pulls Obi-Wan into a gentle hug.

“Don’t you ever, ever, get between me and an enemy like that.” Qui-Gon says. His voice is shaky; Obi-Wan can’t recall ever hearing it like that before. “It isn’t your duty to protect me.”

“Of course it is.” Obi-Wan says. “If I didn’t, who would?”

He means it to be amusing, but Qui-Gon just frowns harder. “Not at the expense of your own life, Obi-Wan. Please.”

“I’m not dead.”

“And I am so very happy about that. Let’s get you to a doctor.” Qui-Gon gently helps him up. “I thought when I was sent down that reactor shaft that I would lose you, Obi-Wan. I thought… I thought that I would have to burn your pyre.”

Obi-Wan swallows back a bitter feeling. “Not yet, Master.”

They make their way through the energy shields. Qui-Gon holds him up; his legs are practically jelly, and Obi-Wan knows that if Qui-Gon were to let go he would collapse to the ground. Qui-Gon speaks again. “I am so proud of you, Obi-Wan. And I am so angry with you, too.”

“You’re… proud of me?”

Qui-Gon holds him tighter. “Yes, I’m proud of you. I’m certain that Zabrak was a Sith, not just a darksider. And you beat him in battle. That shows skill that I should have acknowledged long before now. You should have been knighted years ago.”

Obi-Wan feels dizzy.  He sucks in a shaky breath, trying, desperately, not to show just how emotional it’s made him to hear that. It’s the shock, he tells himself. And what Qui-Gon has said is untrue; Obi-Wan is a Jedi Master, thirty-eight years old. He’s a master of Soresu, High General of the GAR, able to hold his own against Dooku and Grievous and Anakin.

“Don’t speak too quickly, Master.” He says, and promptly faints.

Obi-Wan wakes in a hospital bed to find both Qui-Gon and (young) Anakin sitting in the chair beside him, both sleeping. Anakin is sitting in Qui-Gon’s lap, back against Qui-Gon’s chest and absolutely dwarfed in size. Qui-Gon sits back in the chair, head hanging at an awkward angle. They’re both wearing new clothes.

Obi-Wan turns his head to look at his arm. It hasn’t, magically, been reconnected. How unfortunate. He rather liked that arm. He’s had it since birth, after all. They’ve been inseparable his entire life. Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, smothering a laugh. I must be medicated. I can’t even feel it. How long have I been asleep? Long enough for Qui-Gon and Anakin to change and fall asleep at his bedside.

He sighs and sits up. He most certainly shouldn’t be moving, but that hasn’t stopped him before. His balance is all off; he’d always assumed that losing a limb would cause that side of him to feel too light, but instead, the rest of him just feels too heavy. A small difference, but a difference nonetheless.

Obi-Wan uses the Force to pull the IV from his arm, detaching all the machines and probably creating a wonderful opportunity to scare his doctors. He even has a catheter. Fortunately, Obi-Wan has practice removing those, too. Even with one hand (there had been a memorable time he’d fractured all the bones in his wrist; even with bacta he’d walked around with his arm in a cast for two weeks). It’s more difficult with only one hand, but as he has the advantage of the Force, he’s able to deal reasonably well. He dresses in a pair of clothing left on the bedside table. They fit him well enough, so he imagines they were left for him. Qui-Gon and Anakin remain asleep the entire time. Just how long was I unconscious?

Satisfied, he slips out of the room. The halls are empty of people and sparsely decorated, and after a few moments of walking around he recognises it. He’s still in Theed, in one of their hospitals. The fact that there aren’t people rushing around suggests he’s been out for a while; he imagines that there were a lot of citizens in need of medical attention.

There had been the first time around.

The wall is cool as he leans against it. The first time around. He’s time traveled, actually time traveled, and he has a million choices to make for the future. Where to start? How? Qui-Gon is alive. How will this affect Anakin’s training? Will he be trained? Do I want him to be trained?

I can’t train him. Obi-Wan had failed, somehow. Failed to realize that Anakin was slipping. Failed to teach him about attachment and duty. But surely he can do better this time? Surely he can correct these before they ever become problems? You can barely look at him.

And that-- that’s true. He can barely look at Anakin, barely think about him, because all he sees is yellow eyes filled with rage and he thinks of Anakin’s words (“I hate you!”). He can barely look at Qui-Gon, either, seeing a long-dead ghost and suddenly he’s on Mortis again with the Father, Son, and Daughter, where Ahsoka is dying and Anakin is being drawn to the Dark Side and the Father only wants Anakin to take his place (but it was Obi-Wan that was far closer to the Father in position, wasn’t he? Anakin had told him once that he was like a father to him and he’d taken a shot, of all things, because he couldn’t talk about his damned feelings.)

So Obi-Wan sneaks out of the hospital. There are people in the streets, lots of them, many going about their business, trying to go back to a normal life and others, he can feel in the Force, are just happy to be alive. He’s far from the only one in rough shape, and nobody gives him a second glance as he wanders, soaking in the utter happiness that pervades the city.

The people are just so happy to be alive.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes. He’ll go back to the hospital later, after he’s immersed himself in the livelihood of Theed for a while. Once he’s centered himself in the Force. He wanders. The Force keeps him steady enough to keep going. His balance doesn’t quite even out-- that will take time and practice, and very likely a prosthetic.

He finds himself in a city park. It’s been turned into a memorial area, and he settles himself in the grass not far from one memorial made of tables, candles, and colored cloth. There are some holophotos set on it, though he’s too far away to make out the details. It’s very pretty, all things considered.

With a small sigh, he settles into meditation. He opens himself to the Force as fully as he trusts; he’s no need for any Sith to take it as an invitation, and he’d prefer to stay hidden from Qui-Gon and any other Jedi that may be on planet at the moment. I just want some time alone to process.

All of the pain of the last thirteen years of his life has just washed away. Been unmade. It hasn’t happened yet, and perhaps never will. He can go home to the Temple and it will be peaceful and alive. But he still carries his own memories and knowledge of the future. Trauma, even unmade, is still trauma. And what trauma it is! The missing arm is really the least of his worries.

Step one. Pass everything off as trauma due to his missing limb. Step two. Make it to the Temple without acting awfully towards anyone. Step three. Don’t throw up when he gets to the Temple. Step four. Tell someone the truth? No, it’s unlikely he’ll be believed. Or they’ll treat it like a vision-- a possible future, but not one that should overtake his every living moment. And really, the less people that know, the better, because then there’s less chance the Sith can find out. Some things will certainly be more difficult-- convincing someone to do something when they don’t know why they should is a source of neverending frustration. So. Step four. Research. Research into the Sith, into Republic relations, into Jedi-Galaxy relations, anything that he can use to fix the future. Step five. Use that research to convince (manipulate) the galaxy into not supporting the Sith.

How incredibly easy.

Focus on the here and now.

And so he does.

Qui-Gon and Master Yoda find him several hours later, and neither are very impressed that he’s wandered. Obi-Wan bites back some sarcastic comments-- well, I learned it from the best and it’s quirky when the two of you do it-- and simply lets them scold him. He can feel their emotions in the Force, and they’re far more worried than they are angry. 

In the end they drag him back to the hospital, where the doctors and nurses fuss over him and he bites back retorts of yes, Helix, and I understand, Helix and yes, Cody is aware of my injuries, he’s my commander, because he isn’t talking to Helix or any of his men and they tried to kill him, in the end. The first batches are likely only now being created, anyway. After he’s been checked over the nurses let him eat. It’s only soup, more broth than anything else, because he was apparently in a coma for a week.

And then a Council meeting. Because the entire Jedi Council is in Theed to deal with the fallout, unlike last time. On one hand, it’s nice to see that things are changing so easily. On the other hand, it’s rather frightening-- if things change too much then his future knowledge is useless. The Council has been waiting for him to wake up, Qui-Gon explains. He’d given them a quick runthrough of the events, and there had been plenty of talks with the Naboo government and the Republic Senate, but the specific main Jedi Council meeting has been waiting on Obi-Wan. He wishes it wouldn’t weigh on him as much as meetings had during the war, like everything is on his shoulders, but it does. There’s so much to say, so much not to say.

He attends the meeting reclining on his hospital bed while the Council crowds around him, and tries not to feel embarrassed. Qui-Gon speaks for most of the time, relying on Obi-Wan to fill in the gaps and to vouch for his recollection of events. The fight in the reactor, though… that’s Obi-Wan’s story to tell, and he spends most of the meeting with half his mind on what’s being said and half figuring out what his story is going to be.

He confirms that Maul had killed himself, though he says nothing of their conversation about Palpatine beyond that Maul insinuated having a Master. He explains away his actions made to keep Qui-Gon away from Maul as worry and a desperation to prove himself. He’s a senior padawan, it’s practically a given that he’d be a bit headstrong. Especially in a situation like this-- a darksider, possibly a Sith, who wouldn’t want to be known as a Sith Killer? (He doesn’t, never did, and in the end, he still hasn’t killed a Sith.)

Obi-Wan is promised a prosthetic and plenty of recovery time. Qui-Gon promises him knightship. Obi-Wan nods and hums in all the right places, looking suitably excited when needed and humbled in other moments. It’s all an act, really, because he’s been knighted for years and been a Master on the Council too. If the Council notices, well. He has lost an arm.

Finally, the meeting is disbanded, and everyone but Qui-Gon shuffles out to leave Obi-Wan to rest. Ha, as if he needs rest. This is nothing compared to--

Qui-Gon puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Obi-Wan.”

“Master Qui-Gon.”

Qui-Gon’s face pinches. “Are you alright? Really, Obi-Wan? You’ve been acting differently lately. Is it Anakin?”

Obi-Wan blinks. “Anakin?” The name tastes like ash in his mouth. How does he know?

Qui-Gon calls a chair over to the bedside and sits heavily in it. “I offered to train him, the last time we were on Coruscant. I haven’t made you jealous, have I? Or feel like you’re being cast away?”

Oh. Oh. “No, Master. I’m– twenty five years old, I’m not going to be jealous of a child.”

“Then please, tell me what’s happened. I know you, Obi-Wan. What changed? You’ve never acted like that in a fight before. You’ve never favored Soresu, but you used that form like you’ve practiced it all your life.” Qui-Gon says. “Please, Obi-Wan.”

He swallows down a wave of emotions. I’m sorry, Qui-Gon. “I’ve never fought anyone like him before. I was scared.”

Qui-Gon frowns deeply. “Obi-Wan…”

“It’s the truth, Master. If he truly was a Sith, then we have to be vigilant. He could have beaten both of us without much trouble. What then?” Obi-Wan looks him in the eyes. “If he had killed you… I fear the consequences could have been greater than we can imagine.”

“Did you have a vision?”

“No.” Obi-Wan says. It isn’t a lie. “I just think we need to be careful. If the Sith have managed to hide from us for so long, what else lurks between the cracks of the galaxy?”

[merrysithmas]

Anakin & literacy

It seems likely that Anakin, as a slave, would have never had initial instruciton in Basic or Reading.

Of course, he is preternaturally gifted in mechanics and a prodigy with such skills (which is actually a Force ability called mechu-deru).

Given these advantages, he was likely able to teach himself some basic symbol interpretation for practical engineering, or worked to at least superficially comprehend discarded, out-of-date droid instruction manuals which had little to do with the tech he had at hand.

More importantly, for his survival, I postulate, he was able to decipher numbers ledgers and invoices given to those cajoled by Watto into overpriced and unquality services.

And of course, we know Anakin can speak several language. Basic, Bocce (another standard of Tatooine), Huttese & Jawaese (both trade languages of Tatooine with Huttese being the most commonly spoken language). Anakin could also likely understand others such as those spoken by the various Tusken tribes & Toydarian. His skill with spoken language likely far outstrips most classically trained Jedi padawans.

But for the most part, in regards to written language, it seems that Anakin was likely illiterate when Qui-gon found him and brought him to the Temple. It is very much easy to imagine a strung-out, grief-lagged young Obi-wan carelessly depositing a stack of beginner texts on simplistic rules of the Order meant for Younglings in front of the unusual Anakin, who looks up at him, perplexed.

"What am I supposed to do with those?" the boy asks in his innocent, direct manner.

Obi-wan -- already wearied and short of fuse from the barrage of new responsibilities which follow knightship, the ever-watchful concern of the Council regarding his "special assignment" of Anakin, and the hard punch of social curiosity regarding his slaughter of Maul (and so reliving Qui-gon's death daily) -- assumes this is some childish and unmannered inquiry, and vexed, replies, "Why to read, young Skywalker. Now please attend to your duties as I attend to my own."

Obi-wan hardly thinks much else of it until one day, not too far later, he sees Anakin holding a book upside down. It's only then he realizes his mistake and assumption and guides Anakin to the Temple teachers to catch up on what is a considerably delayed instruction in the basics of Reading and Writing. This is something Obi-wan has taken for granted and that he hadn't truly given much thought to at that point besides the ubiquitous airy sentiment of "we are so lucky to live in Coruscant, the farther reaches of the galaxy don't have what we do".

Anakin undoubtedly becomes well-versed in all manner of literacy by the time he is a General, receiving and sending communiques constantly, but it is still likely that, given his penchant for direct action over delayed patience, he may prefer holograms and other spoken communication.

Anakin's habit of action-over-patience is a proclivity that certainly comes from somewhere. It is well known he is arrogant which is connected to a keen sense of doubt and self-perceived inferiority. His lower than average reading comprehension - and his consequent natural penchant for learning through action - is a probable contributor to this sense of nervousness and displacement. Especially in the context of schooling, where he may have wanted to prove himself growing up - such as when around his contemporaries (the other universally-educated Padawans). Also, it stands to mention the incredible awe he must have had of young Padme & young Obi-wan's skills in these areas.

This routine of showing off what he can do is clearly an effort to contribute in his own way, to fit in, and to distract from what he can't do- a habit which does not serve him well later in life, and is often interpreted as pure bravado.

His desire to prove his skills equal to (or superior to) traditional bookishness is apparent especially in his early relationship with Obi-wan. Obi-wan, who is desperately, white-knuckled clinging to the rules and regulations. Obi-wan who suffers from a terror and self-doubt in his own abilities, seen as inferior by Qui-gon. He truly doubts his ability to handle the undue aquisition of the Chosen One. Thus, he reacts in contrariness to Anakin's criticisms and complaints. They just do not see eye to eye and are both struggling individually, not seeing each other.

Anakin sees Obi-wan's skills and reliance on the rules as weak (propped up by the summation he heard Qui-gon give of Obi-wan's abilities himself - "he is headstrong and has much to learn of the Living Force... there is nothing more I can teach him"). To him, pedantics are a poor substitute for real-life experience. And it is worth noting Anakin does have a point. That even as a child he had a considerable amount of experience and knowledge of the "real world" in a way all of the other Padawans (and even many of the knighted Jedi) did not. Their actions & inexperienced appraisals of even common social situations must have seemed at times incredibly ignorant and unjust to him.

Obi-wan on the other hand, sees Anakin's restlessness and discomfort with Temple norms as disrespectful and premature. In a way, of course, Obi-wan is also correct. Anakin lacks the formal finesse and structure of the Order, the foundational skills to the responsibilities he seeks to have as a Jedi as written in their carefully crafted syllabus. Anakin certainly lacks the building blocks of respect for his incredible natural gifts - something Obi-wan struggles mitigating.

I do think Anakin was right (at some points): Anakin was very observant and sensitive in the Force - it is likely that he was correct in his observations, that Obi-wan was jealous, young and unpracticed as Obi-wan still was. Obi-wan who was hypersensitive of rules and process, an unforgiving perfectionist who stuck to dogma like glue in order to become the most pristine version of himself. His gave his utmost efforts to fulfill the vision of the Order, to please his inscrutable Master & the Council - and so feel self-worth. Anxious padawan Obi-wan who worked and studied tirelessly for every perfected skill he had. Anakin wasn't the only one searching for approval and praise as a padawan...

That Obi-wan... faced with someone so naturally talented and shirking of core basics as Anakin? That must have, indeed, irked him like no other! Anakin on the other hand also equally harbored a jealousy of Obi-wan - someone who could focus so keenly and work so diligently and through that alone nearly match his skill. Obi-wan worked to be so good. Anakin's skills were Force-given, and in his own doubtful mind he must have asked himself... were they unearned? am I a sham?

They both distrusted one another before they realized, in an immense stroke of binding fate, that they were more alike in the ways that counted than different, and their differences strengthed and empowered the other. Anakin eventually sees Obi-wan's observation, patience, and practiced mastery as unmatched - the perfect companion. He is stabilized and turned inward by Obi-wan's influence. In a way, tamed. He is shocked by Obi-wan's ability to be so wise & skilled by focus alone. Something he sees as a Obi-wan's great gift. Obi-wan on the other hand, learns to truly live with Anakin by his side. See life for what it is, not what he learned. He is set free.

I always wondered when reading The Jedi Path, when I'd see scribbled notes in the margins of the text from Obi-wan, Ahsoka, Tyranus, etc: out of all of them, Anakin's seemed the shortest, the least detailed, the most succinct. Why? His petulance and disinterest aside, it was likely, out of necessity. His lack of skill in reading and writing at that point (as a Padawan). And realizing this, many of these feelings we observe in him (petulance, impatience, restlessness) may have arisen in the academic sense because of his learning curve with both reading and writing.

Lastly, I'd like to note in The Book of Sith when we see Vader's scribbled notes they are far more eloquent, written in impeccable cursive, and insightful. It is interesting that Vader is so different from Anakin in this sense and that he seems to pick up many of Obi-wan's defenses - a mask of eloquence and neatness. This may be in an effort to become a "perfect" Sith, (as Obi-wan struggled with his pursuit of being the "perfect" Jedi) when he knows he is not truly capable of such (Anakin always inside, as it was Anakin's love that was manipulated to form Vader).

Vader's manner of diction and formality can be linked to all of the above ("Anakin Skywalker was weak)". It is an exhausting effort by Vader to distance himself from the prime ego Anakin Skywalker. Vader, the alter ego, seeks to pursue a mask of monstrosity for both his own psychological shield and to project an identity he could not, infuriatingly, get to entirely stick.

[galacticwildfire]

Illicit Affairs

Three

Obi-Wan Kenobi x Amidala!oc

Rhea Amidala meets Obi-Wan Kenobi when he and his master come to her younger sisters aid and he discovers the queen's sister was once a Jedi, expelled from the order for her unwillingness to forgo love and attachment. The two stranded together on Tatooine find common ground despite their differences, and above all a hope within the other for something greater than themselves.

Word count: 7.5k

Tags/warnings: okay guys we have all the romance this chapter with the beginnings of the angst, also fck palpatine

A/N: this story is a decades long tragedy. be prepared.

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My dreams were sweet, and we would have stayed like it for as long as we could if not for the commotion telling us we're about to reach Coruscant.

We look at each other in a mutual state of awe, no words needing to be spoken as he helps me to my feet and guides me out to where Padme is getting ready since she will be addressing the senate herself in due time.

She wears a brave face but even so I squeeze her hand and promise her "It will be alright."

She nods weakly and I hold her tight as we near the planet, my eyes meeting Obi-Wans as the discomfort begins to set in. The knowing I've not returned here since I left five years ago.

Anakin lingers near Padme as we prepare for what's to come, it's clear he's taken a liking to her, it's sweet.

"He made this for me," she tells me, showing me the charm he carved. "He said it will bring me good fortune."

"What a sweet boy," I smile but she still looks concerned.

"He misses his mother."

I nod knowing what she is asking me and I take Anakin aside, bending down to talk to him.

"I know this is hard, leaving home for a place you don't know, with people who are strangers," I tell him and reveal "I was like you once. Some people came and told me I was special like you are, they took me away from Padme and my parents, it hurts and there's no other way of going about it."

"When will it stop hurting?" he asks me and I feel Obi-Wan and Padme both watching.

"You'll miss her," I say to him, knowing they're simple words that could never begin to prepare him for the truth of it. "But that's okay, because it means you still love your mom and nothing is wrong with that, no matter what anyone tells you." I hold the little boys hand tight. "But Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan will take good care of you now, like they've taken care of me."

Qui-Gon comes to stand beside me. "She's right, challenging times are ahead but you will overcome them all. Rhea, a word?"

I nod, immediately assuming it's about Obi-Wan but instead he says "When we arrive your sister will be greeted by Senator Palpatine and the Chancellor, however Obi-Wan and I will be meeting with the Jedi Council and I ask you come with us."

I look to Obi-Wan in panic who assures me "It will be alright, your sister will be occupied but to ensure her safety we need you on board with what we bring to the council."

"Which is?"

Qui-Gon tells me with no sugarcoating "That what can only be a Sith lord is after your sister."

My heart stops but when it beats again it's with purpose. "How do we stop him?"

"I don't know yet," Qui-Gon admits. "But we will."

I look at Obi-Wan again who nods in agreement. "All will be well Rhea." Qui-Gon leaves us and Obi-Wan reaches for my hand as I clam up. "You may have left the order, but you still have every right to stand before the council as we do. Master Dooku left and he still visits the temple often, it's nothing unheard of." I nod anxiously, still struggling for words at the thought of once again being put on trial. "Rhea?"

"I just want to stand there and represent my planet, I don't want an interrogation," I tell him and warn. "If they attack me I will defend myself."

"I don't doubt that," he says and jokes "I certainly won't make the mistake of arguing ideology with you again."

We both laugh but it's overshadowed by Qui-Gons theory. "A sith- why would a sith be after us?"

He's at a loss. "I don't know, but I promise you we will find out." 

He looks around at the crowded room with Qui-Gon speaking to Captain Panaka and Anakin and Padme talking before discreetly guiding us to somewhere more private where it's just the two of us.

"If we are facing a sith, we will need as many Jedi as we can get," he begins and takes my hand. "I have no doubt the council will allow us to continue our assignment and stay with you and your sister until this mess is dealt with, but even then I-" he struggles with his words. "I don't want this mission to end."

Those words alone confess something forbidden for him and so I assure him "Neither do I."

He treads carefully "I know how you feel about the order but if there was a way you could continue on this assignment with us after it's done, cleaning up the collateral and finding the sith, would you?"

"I would," I answer in a heartbeat. "But I don't think the council would allow me, how I left- it was not pretty or graceful. The rage you've seen, it was far worse when I was fourteen."

"I don't doubt that," he says, thumb running over the back of my hand and I feel his nervousness. "But that rage pales in comparison to the rest of you."

Softly I ask "And what is that?"

"Good," he answers without hesitation. "Someone who cares very much for her family and her own people and strangers alike, and I would call the highest form of compassion. A quality it seems the councils overlooked."

I know I'm blushing as I struggle with the flustered smile those words bring to my face. "Compassionate, I don't think I've ever heard that word used to describe me in the slightest."

"Then how about some others," he says and I look up from our hands to meet his eye. "Discerning, passionate, enlightening." I feel our bodies being drawn together as I'm drawn into his blue eyes. "Loyal, captivating, opinionated." I feel my breath hitch in my throat as he continues "Alluring."

"Alluring?" I breathe, knowing allure is something a Jedi should certainly not feel and turn the tables. "And what of you Obi-Wan? Understanding, bright, quick-witted." I feel his free hand trailing along the bare skin of my arm, goosebumps rising. "Perceptive, hopeful, devoted." My own hand comes up to touch his face, fingers tracing his jaw. "I don't think I've ever met someone who has as much faith as you do."

"And it isn't misplaced," he promises me and I find myself lost in his eyes, feeling something that I try to fight and yet my chin tilts up towards his as I feel his fingertips on the small of my back and I only look away from his eyes to see our fingers lacing together and when I look back up I'm breathless at the closeness of him.

He tilts his head down and the tension between us is unbearable as his lips hover over mine, but even I know this is wrong, that this will only cause us pain and whisper "We shouldn't."

"I know," he says, but it's as if trying to resist the pull of the force. "Trust me, I know. I swore I wouldn't..." 

He trails off in pain, and I turn my head away and step out of his embrace, sensing something deeper behind it and now I'm the one in pain as I breathe "Obi-Wan, whoever you loved...you won't find her in me."

He looks up and quickly insists "No- that's not-" with the step he takes forward I take one back and he tells me "Rhea that's not what I'm saying and that has nothing to do with the way I feel about you."

"Feel?" I repeat, the madness of this finally dawning on us both. "We hardly even know each other." 

And yet somehow he knows me better than anyone ever has.

"You know that's not true," he says, clearly believing what we feel isn't by chance. "Search your feelings and you'll know that this-"

"Is something that is forbidden," I say, shaking my head knowing just what will happen to him if he breaks the code. "I was expelled, I suffered the shame of being a failure so listen to me when I tell you that it is not a fate you want to face."

At the mention of being forced out of the order his face hardens and he agrees "No it's not, but it isn't that simple."

"Isn't it?" I ask him, defending myself from the pain I know this will cause, knowing someone couldn't love me unless they saw someone else in my eyes. "You loved someone, and that someone is not me and it can't be me."

"Your right, it can't be," he says, but even as he looks at me now I swear I can see him looking at someone else. "Maybe when we first met I saw her in you, combative, opinionated to the point of extremism, willing to do anything to defend your people." He treads forth towards me with extreme caution. "Had she said the word I would have left the Jedi Order, but I always knew it was meant to end, it had to."

"And for that you have my condolences," I say stiffly, only feeling pain at his words as I go to leave. "But I am not her."

He grabs my wrist, pulling me back. "I don't want you to be." I still don't look at him as he says "There is love, and then there is this." I want to pull my hand free, I want to curse him and pretend all that has passed these past days never happened, but I can't. "I know you can feel it."

I do, when we laid together under the stars it's all I could feel, a pull to each other that was as strong as the force itself, and standing here now I hate it. "I don't want to feel it."

"And you think I do?" he exclaims and with that I look back at him, eyes burning into him and yet he doesn't let go. "I swore to myself I'd never let myself fall in love again and that I have succeeded in, but this- I've never been faced with anything like this. With someone who makes me forget everything I've ever been taught, who makes me feel things I don't want to feel, makes me question everything I've ever believed in-"

"And you think you don't do the same to me?" I half yell and laugh sadly, him not knowing the half of it. "You don't think that what I feel makes me question everything I fought against, that the people who turned their backs on me can't be as rotten as I believe if they somehow made someone like you." I'm cursing his name as much as putting him on a pedestal. "I was doing just fine until I met you, I never had anyone look at me the way you do, see through me how you do. I was fine being the failure everyone hated until you made me feel like more than that."

"Because you are," he says, now taking both my hands in his. "Just because you turned your back on the order doesn't mean you aren't a Jedi."

"They turned their back on me," I say hoarsely. "Not the other way around, and I won't let them do the same to you because the force is playing some sick joke on us-"

"I thought you would know better than to think the force would do such a thing," a voice interrupts and we jump apart at the sight of Master Qui-Gon who looks upon us with a heavy heart. "The council will not turn their backs on any of us, not if I have something to say for it." He looks between us and lowers his eyes. "Now come, we have business to attend to."

He leaves us and we're silent, the space between us agony as he reaches again for my hand and says "What I feel for you has nothing to do with anyone else." As much as I don't want believe him I know his words are true. "When we took this mission I- I could never have expected you." His voice is resolute as his eyes meet mine. "I believe that us meeting was not a mistake."

"How is this not a mistake?" I ask him, my voice filled with pain as reality dawns on us. "How can this possibly end in anything but pain?"

He's vulnerable as he says "Do you think I don't know how this ends? I do, I've spent years training myself to force those feelings aside until you came and taught me it doesn't have to be that way. That you don't have to be emotionless to feel the force. I don't know what this is Rhea, but I know that this pull to each other is something greater than feelings."

"Which is why we cannot act on them," I say, finally stepping away from him as I hear the rest of the crew departing. "Even if we wanted to."

With those words I walk towards the exit of the ship and step out onto the ramp, needing the fresh air to breathe, watching as my sister is greeted by Palpatine and the Chancellor and is guided away by these powerful men, both of whom I can't bring myself to trust. Especially Palpatine. He reeks of what ambitious men reek of. His eyes catch mine as they leave and he offers me a nod with a smile I trust even less. Senator's have their terms, now I wait for him to finish his and ice him out.

"Come," Qui-Gon says to me as Obi-Wan comes to my side, keeping a distance between us. "We must convene with the council."

I nod, not having any more words left in me and Obi-Wan and I share a sad glance as we follow behind Qui-Gon, our blissful moment of peace on Tatooine finally over.

We arrive at the Jedi Temple, Qui-Gon having not spoken another word about how he found Obi-Wan and I, but there is no mistaking what he saw. He knows his padawan and sees through me almost as easily, perhaps it would be easier if he were to scold us, to tell us it is forbidden, to do for us what we struggle to. 

And yet he only seems saddened.

When we come to the temple I feel myself freeze up, and despite it all Obi-Wan comes to my side.

"You can face them," he tells me and and puts a hand on my shoulder. "I'll be right there with you."

Those words shouldn't ease me as much as they do and looking up at those temple steps I know I have to do this. I'm not doing this for myself, but for Padme.

Which is what gives me the strength to take that first step, then the second, and the rest until I come to walk through the halls I grew up in once again. Remembering who I was when I last did.

Rhea Naberrie. Just fourteen, a Jedi padawan. 

I have every right to be here, the council does not change that.

Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon who stay by my side as my former peers gaping at the sight of me all grown up now. 

Rhea Amidala. Nineteen. Protector of the Queen.

And as Obi-Wan reminded me despite how much I have fought against it, still a Jedi at heart.

My steps pick up pace as we approach the lift to the council chambers and I don't dare look back as I step inside and look at Obi-Wan, his eyes telling me all I need to hear. That this is right.

My dark hair is bound in a braid arranged atop my head, and so I pull the pin holding it togetther to let it fall out in a single braid down my back, how I wore it the last time I stood before the council, prosecuted.

Fourteen and afraid of the old men I stood before. Now I watch my sister doing the same without a glimpse of fear. I must have at least a fraction of the courage I taught her to have.

And so I step from the lift, proud as I enter the council chamber and feel a dozen heads turn my way, horrified and bewildered all while I wear the same face I taught my sister to have.

"I present Lady Rhea Amidala to the Council on the matter of Queen Amidala," Qui-Gon says as they take me in and I meet my old masters eye.

"Rhea needs no introduction," she says sadly and shifts uncomfortably in her seat. "Although I would ask why you have brought her before us and how she is of relevance to the matter at hand."

"I am sister to Queen Amidala," I answer proudly and watch her eyes fall. "During our escape from Naboo we were forced to make an emergency landing on Tatooine for repairs. During which we came under attack by an individual who wielded a lightsaber."

It's then Qui-Gon steps forward. "He was trained in the Jedi arts. My only conclusion can be that it was a Sith lord."

"Impossible," Master Mundi exclaims while I raise an eyebrow at my least favourite council member. "The Sith have been extinct for a millenium."

"I do not believe the Sith could have returned without us knowing," Master Windu says and I can't help but scoff. "What was that padawan?"

Yoda corrects "A padawan no longer, expelled she was."

Obi-Wan's head turns to me and he mouths "Expelled?"

My story has always been that I left willingly, only the masters would know the truth.

"She was on mission with Master Billaba and I when she betrayed orders and was expelled for intervening in Jedi business and endangering a child," Master Windu says and that is one accusation I will not take.

"You took a three year old girl from her mother, both of them screaming and fighting tooth and nail-"

"Their owner permitted it-"

"Exactly, they were slaves!" I yell and try to reign myself in. "You paid the slave owner for the girl while her mother screamed and was almost killed trying to get her back."

"And so you returned the girl into slavery to her mother," he says and my stomach churns. "Only to strike down the slave master, causing a diplomatic crisis with the Republic."

I feel Obi-Wans eyes on me, no doubt shocked considering the current situation with Anakin. Except his mother agreed to it, and Anakin is old enough to be willing.

"You should be grateful I did not do it on Tatooine," I spit out, perhaps I would have if it was I who went with Padme and not Qui-Gon. "If killing slave masters and freeing children goes against the Jedi code then so be it."

"You broke intergalactic laws-"

"And I'd do it again," is all I say of it, without allowing for a shred of remorse. "But I did not come here to be interrogated on matters of the past. My duty is to my sister, which is the reason I stand here as an official representative of Naboo as she was attacked by a Sith Lord."

"Break laws young Naberrie did," Yoda says ignoring me. "Much anger in you there is, much recklessness, judgement clouded by feelings they are."

"It was my mistake in teaching her the seventh form," Master Windu says, the master who oversaw my training almost as much as Master Billaba. "I had faith that she could handle it, my faith was misplaced."

I keep my face from showing the hurt those words bring and can feel Obi-Wan's silent comfort, almost as if he's in my head telling me it's not true.

"Master Windu, that is hardly appropriate," Qui-Gon scolds. "The girl has come here as a representative of her planet under my invitation, not a rogue padawan, and I will not have her treated as such."

"Master Qui-Gon, you would do well to remember the troubles she caused for our order as a whole," Windu argues. "She is reckless and spiteful and bringing her here before us for whatever reason only reflects poorly on yourself."

"Then so be it," Qui-Gon says, and never before has anyone defended me so shamelessly. "If I remember correctly you took the girl under your wing when she was only a young padawan, before you even assigned her to your own apprentice Master Billaba. Your faith in her was not misplaced and the only person to blame for her spitefulness is the council for giving it reason."

I feel Obi-Wan's immediate fear at his masters defiance as I stand there wide eyed, but the council do not seem phased and I realise this must be a frequent enough occurrence.

"Standing here now she displays exceptional courage, only to be attacked for coming before you and demanding action after her sisters life was endangered by what we must suspect is a sith."

Finally I clear my throat and step forward.  "Master Windu, Master Yoda, my feelings do not cloud my judgement," I say, declaring what I was too afraid to at fourteen, but I know my heart well enough now. "They make me see clearer, they make me stronger not weaker. That is your Jedi orders greatest mistake, equating feelings with darkness when all they bring me is closer to the light." It takes all the strength in me not to look at Obi-Wan. "I know my own heart and mind, and those worthy of seeing it too know my truth, and right now my priority is to assist the Jedi Order in bringing down this Sith Lord to ensure my sister's safety."

"But you are no longer a Jedi," Master Windu says, Billaba my former master quiet. "You surrendered that privilege when your emotions caused you to go against the order and almost started a war between Slave Owners and the Republic."

"I am a Jedi," I declare, and Qui-Gon gives me an encouraging nod. "Whether or not I am a member of this order the force is with me, and it's will is greater than your authority. The code is flawed, I know many Jedi believe it to be so even if they are afraid to speak it." I can feel Qui-Gon's pride in me at those words. "The force is what makes a Jedi, not the code. How can any Jedi can have control over their feelings if they refuse to feel them? How can you tell someone that love leads to darkness when it brings them closer to the force?"

"Master if I may speak." I look back at Obi-Wan stunned as he steps forward in my defence. "While we all live by the code there must be allowance to the interpretation of the code, as Master Qui-Gon has taught me," Obi-Wan carefully treads, neither Qui-Gon or I sure where he is going with this, but Qui-Gon looks upon his padawan with nothing but pride. "While it is true she is an individual who does harbour great emotion, she is able to wield it well, with there never being a moment of darkness attached to it. Perhaps a slight of anger or fear, but the same as we all are susceptible to despite our training. Her circumstances are not black and white." 

"No, but they are her undoing," Master Windu says whilst my eyes linger on Obi-Wan, trying to hide that very emotion right now in this moment. "She went rogue and almost caused a diplomatic disaster for the order. That is a type of recklessness that does not simply disappear, but is only emboldened."

"Then perhaps it was your own mistake Master Windu," I accuse. "For bringing me to the order at an age where I could not be indoctrinated like the rest."

"You're right," he says coldly. "I should have left you and saved myself a headache."

"Enough!" Qui-Gon intervenes. "I will remind you again that she is not here for interrogation. She is here on business on behalf of the Queen of Naboo. Now, can we get to that business."

Finally they allow it and give me a nod to speak.

"My sister narrowly escaped this attack as Master Qui-Gon fought off the attacker until we could escape," I say, knowing I will not leaving until they act. "I stand here on behalf of Naboo demanding action. Our planet has been invaded and our people rounded up and put into camps. The senate has yet to act in our favour and as my sister's military advisor I will act to save my people no matter the result of the senate." That is a fact no one in this room doubts. "But I myself cannot stop a sith, and so I request Master Qui-Gon and his padawan be allowed to continue with this mission to stop this attacker with the councils support in launching a full investigation and providing extra security to the queen."

The council is quiet in contemplation, Yoda especially.

"We will use all our resources to unravel this mystery, we will discover the identity of your attacker," Master Windu finally says but does not give a when or how. "The council will convene on this matter, you are dismissed."

Qui-Gon bows and goes to leave but I stop him.

"Wait- is that all?" I look to the council. "So you wait until it attacks us again and then decide to determine a further course of action?" I quickly realise that is exactly what they intend to do. "No, that's not good enough."

"Rhea, please," Master Billaba pleads with me. "We will do all we can for your sister."

"It's still not good enough, I was sent here on her behalf and with her authority I demand further action be taken," I insist and find Temple guards beginning to escort me out. "Don't touch me!"

They grab me as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan both try to intervene but not before I end up in a physical altercation with the guards whilst Master Billaba orders the guards to let me go but it falls on deaf ears.

"The Sith are back!" I yell as the guards attempt to pull me from the room but I am long past the point of grace. "Has the order become so blind you could not see it? And what? What do you do now you have this information? Nothing! You send two Jedi on a suicide mission hoping it will be discreetly dealt with?" I break free from the guards and hold my ground. "A Sith roams free yet you are more concerned by what my presence could bring upon your precious order? Are you all blind!" I feel Obi-Wans hand on my arm but shake it off, it's my anger they say that clouds my judgement but in it I see clearly. "I remember now why I left, why I pushed and pushed against the order until you rid of me. It's because of this right here. So preoccupied with order it borders on madness while the Sith have risen up and what do you do? Sit here in your chairs judging me when my failures are only representative of your own!"

They're all silent as I look around the room and my eyes fall on Qui-Gon "Am I wrong?" I look back to the council. "Are any of you so brave to agree with me, or do you disregard me for the sake of order and conformity? Because I have spent the last years in the political sphere, and you are becoming far less of whatever the Jedi should stand for and more of an oligarchy of righteousness!"

From their silence I know my words cut deep, and I pray I do not leave them with a peaceful mind as I finish "And you shall lose more Jedi until you overcome it."

I leave the room before I can be escorted out heading straight for the lift and pushing past a man I vaguely recognise as Master Dooku as Obi-Wan chases after me.

"Rhea!"

"You heard what I said and if you want me to apologise I'll say it all again!" I yell back and curse under my breath as I walk into the lift "Pretentious bastards."

Before the door can slide closed he pushes in, still trying to reason with me. "Rhea-"

"I am not going back in there."

"I'm not asking you to," he says, his voice breathless. "I'm coming with you so they don't pull you out of here and drag you out."

"That's why I'm leaving willingly," I retort but he has questions of his own.

"Why didn't you say you were expelled?"

"Because of the shame," I tell him, still remembering my mothers face. "I was expelled from the order for refusing to sit back and watch innocents suffer. They said I was turning sith by killing a slave master when it was justice," I insist, begging him to believe me without even realising it. "All I could hear was my baby sister screaming and my older one fighting for me when Mace Windu took that girl away, all I could remember was once being that little girl and after repeatedly being chastised and ripped apart by the council I snapped!"

He grabs me by the arms to keep me still as he tells me "I'm not fighting with you Rhea."

"Do you understand now?" I ask him and watch something in his eyes change. "Do you understand now why I hate everything the order stands for as much as I do?"

His hands are still holding my arms when the lift opens and he quickly withdraws them, instead grabbing my wrist and pulling me with him. 

"Come with me," he says as he leads me through the Jedi Temple and I follow him, half expecting to be brought to a confinement room but I'm surprised when he brings me to the living quarters, and finally to what must be his room. 

He pulls me behind the corner and checks to make sure no one's seen us before pulling me inside and making sure the door closes behind us.

"Obi-Wan?"

His hands are on my face, his voice desperate. "I understand and I know what they say about you isn't true, I know because I've seen it, and I meant every word I said in there." Tears wet my cheeks and he wipes them away as he did before. "What you said about your heart, I know it's true."

"I know," I breathe unevenly. "Because it took every bit of discipline in me not to look straight at you, otherwise they would have known."

"Known what?" he asks as if we're both fools.

I smile shakily as I look him in his blue eyes. "You know what."

And he does know. He knows the attachment he and I both harbour, something the code forbids. Yet we've both fallen pray to it.

"I've had blind faith for so long," he tells me, thumb stroking my cheek. "But you and Master Qui-Gon, you're right about the council, about the code." His body is close to mine, his breath warm in the dark room. "Especially you. I- I don't know what I have faith in now. But I know I have it in you."

My breath is only a whisper "No one's ever truly had faith in me before."

All my life I've only heard how reckless I am, how ashamed they are of me, how any faith was misplaced. Until now.

This isn't love. Not yet. But it could be. 

I know it because all I feel when he touches me is hope.

"I do."

And perhaps hope is the most dangerous thing of all as our lips meet and just like that there is no going back. Where he was restrained he's now free, and where I was lost I'm now found.

He pulls back, checking that I'm alright and I answer by bringing his lips back to mine, at first rough but then gentle, juxtaposed, the gentle and the rough, meeting for something beautiful. 

My hands reach for his face while his fingers through my hair, my braid falling apart as he comes to hold me in an embrace unlike anything I've ever felt before, both of us giving into something we were always warned against, and finding nothing but light.

"Is this as terrible as they tell us?" I ask him and he breathlessly shakes his head, kissing me again longingly before answering me.

"No, this is-" I can see the conflict in his eyes as he gives in to me "This is anything but that."

We dare explore that forbidden thing with every touch of our lips, wrapping ourselves deeper in one another, and I don't think I've ever felt the force as strongly as I do now in his arms, and I know he feels it too. 

My hand runs down his chest, until I can feel his heartbeat beneath my palm and smile as it pounds beneath his chest, bringing his own hand to feel mine and feel him smile as well. He takes my hand, fingers lacing together palm to palm, eyes fluttering shut as our bodies meet as if they were forged to do so, a oneness I've never felt before with anyone as our lips touch now so gently that anything more feels as if it would overwhelm every sense I have.

"Obi-Wan," I breathe, feeling the sensation even his name brings.

"Rhea," he whispers back, his blue eyes meeting mine, and that's how Qui-Gon finds us when the door is slid open, our bodies together and lips barely apart.

He does not jump away as I'd expect, but merely stares frozen at his master who looks to the floor and sighs, all of us knowing there is no explaining this. Before we could have feigned innocence, one friend helping another, but not now, not like this. 

"Well then," he says, unsurprised but not disappointed, and eyes us with contemplation. "We best find a way out of this predicament and then we will deal with this." 

By deal with he doesn't mean fix, but rather find a way to help us.

"Master," Obi-Wan begins and Qui-Gon just raises a hand to quiet him.

"Rhea, Padme is leaving for the senate, her ship waits for you outside."

I nod, slowly pulling myself away from Obi-Wan, neither of us able to form any words.

"Here, let us escort you out," Qui-Gon says and we're silent as we leave the temple. 

Obi-Wan and I keep our distance and I look behind me when I feel someone watching only to meet the eyes of Master Dooku who's looking straight at me, as if through me. 

His stare haunts me long after I've left the temple and indeed we find a ship waiting for us, along with Anakin.

"The boy has come to be tested by the council," Qui-Gon tells me. "I suspect you'll have words for him."

I nod knowing what he's asking of me, and walk forward towards the boy. The slave boy who left his mother for a chance at a better life and yet has no idea what's ahead.

"Now Anakin," I say, bending down to his height. "Are you sure you want this, that you don't want to return to your mother?"

"I'll miss her, but one day when I'm a Jedi I'll go home to free her," he tells me, and I know the council may be rid of me, but they'll have their hands full with him.

"I hope so Anakin," I say and look behind me to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. "Now I don't know if you'll see Padme or I again, but I do hope our paths cross. These two Jedi will be here for you, they'll be your new family. Now, you may not like everything the council says, they can be very tough and often wrong, but you are an exceptional boy and they are the ones lucky to have you, never forget that."

"Really?" he asks, and I can only assume he's never been told that, just as I never was.

"Yes, now go on," I tell him, watching as he goes to Qui-Gon who promises me.

"We'll look after him."

"If anything doesn't go to plan," I say, meaning he doesn't pass their tests. "We will care for him."

"I know you will," he assures me, and it's only as he goes to leave a panic fills me, Obi-Wan and I looking at each other in alarm and I call out.

"Wait!"

Qui-Gon looks back but my eyes are on Obi-Wan, a realisation that has only just hit me. That they may not be leaving Coruscant with Padme and I if the council refuses to take action. "Are you coming with us?"

Obi-Wan looks to his master for answer as well, and he assures us "We will complete our mission, patience young padawans."

Obi-Wan and I stand there as Padme calls me to get onboard, I want to run forward towards him but out here in public I know I cannot, so I give an emotional nod and jump inside the speeder as they return inside the temple.

Oh what a beautiful tragic mess we have gotten ourselves into.

"What was that?" Padme asks me as we take off.

"What was what?"

She gives me a look but does not press. "The verdict?"

"Regardless of the council's decision, Master Qui-Gon won't abandon us," I say, realising the reason he was prepared to leave the council session so easily was because he's already made up his mind and that they will not sway it. "We will kill the attacker, and we will free our people."

She looks forward towards the senate and says "We will, and I will not accept no."

~

I am beside Padme in the senate, an illegal blaster beneath the royal robe I wear. While they make their points to the Chancellor I'm scouring the room for any sign of the sith lord, reaching out through the force in a way I have not done in a long time but there is a freedom in being the exiled. A freedom to use the force as it feels fit, the natural way instead of the order. 

But even then I find nothing but a general unsettlement.

"Honorable Represenatives of the Republic, I come to you under the gravest of circumstances," Padme begins when it is her turn. "The Naboo system has been invaded by the droid armies of the Trade-"

"I object! There is no proof!"

Padme is past the point of anger, she is already grieving and underneath her tough face she is afraid for her people, for all of us. But if I can do what I've done today, she can do this also.

"We recommend a commission be sent to Naboo to ascertain the truth."

They all argue amongst themselves and I listen to Palpatine in Padme's ear.

"Enter the bureaucrats, the true rulers of the Republic," he tells her and I listen carefully to just what he is feeding her. "And on the payroll of the Trade Federation I may add. This is where Chancellor Valorum's strength will disappear."

I cannot argue against him despite my dislike for the man, the Republic is corrupt and there is no doubt the Federation has allies here.

"The point is conceded," Valorum declares. "Will you defer your motion to allow a commission to explore the validity of your concerns?"

We don't have time, the very suggestion of it is an offence of the worst kind and in that very moment the flaws of the senate are laid out for me plainly.

"I will not defer," she declares, remaining firm. "I've come before you to resolve this attack on our sovereignty now! I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die while you discuss this invasion in a committee!" She decides and I'm glad if there is one thing I've taught her, it's strength in the face of adversity, to not be afraid to raise her voice to a room of people who refuse to listen. "If this body is not capable of action, I suggest new leadership is needed." I nod proudly as she proposes. "I move for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum's leadership."

There is outrage, but she is just what I've taught her to be, unapologetic and controversial.

I only wish I could see myself as I see her.

~

As we wait for the voting I look out the window of Padme's apartments towards the Jedi Temple, wondering how Anakin is going, how Obi-Wan is feeling.

"What occured during the meeting?" Padme asks me knowingly. "Was there an argument?"

"They attempted to escort me out after I had some choice words for the council," I say, but don't want to put anymore worries on her and so I leave out the altercation. "It was all alright though in the end, I remembered just why I left but Obi-Wan took care of me."

"Yes, you two seem close," she comments, but does not insinuate anything. "Do you think he'll take care of Ani?"

"Of course," I assure her, squeezing her hand. "He is in the best hands he can possibly be in. Now, no more worrying about everyone else."

"That's easier said than done."

"I know," I say quietly and wrap an arm around her as we look out at the city together. "If we do not get action from the council I will find another way."

"How?" she asks, but I know she would not like it.

"We'll do whatever it takes," I say, knowing how far I'd go even if she would never approve of my methods. "Your hands will be bloodless, I promise."

"If only it worked that way," she says and the door opens with Panaka escorting Palpatine in.

"Your highness, Senator Palpatine has been nominated to succeed Valorum as Supreme Chancellor!"

My stomach sinks with those words and my eyes shift to him, realising what power play he's enacting using Naboo as his gambling peace, his ulterior motives. Darker doubts fill my mind now surrounding him, if this was his plan all along in eliciting Padme to move for a vote of no confidence...

"A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one." Padme lets no emotion pass her face, she does not care who is chancellor but only for Naboo. "Your majesty, if I am elected I promise to put an end to corruption."

"Those are big promises," I say from the background, stepping forward. "What we need is action now, not wasting time campaigning on empty promises."

He tilts his head at me, finding my distrust curious.

"Who else has been nominated?" Padme asks.

"Bail Antilles of Alderaan and Anle Teem of Malastare."

"Bail Antilles is a good kind of man," I tell Padme, avoiding Palpatine's glare. "He would most certainly help us."

"I feel confident our situation will create a strong sympathy vote for us," Palpatine says ignoring me and boldly declares. "I will be Chancellor."

There is a glimmer in his eyes I don't like and pray Bail will be elected, the dislike I have for Palpatine is enough that it makes me want to campaign against him, regardless Padme is not in the mood for entertaining this. 

"I fear by the time you have control of the bureaucrats there'll be nothing left of our people or our way of life."

"I understand your concern your majesty." I sense his frustration as he sees me by Padme's side, between him and her ear. "Unfortunately the Federation has possession of our planet-"

"And who has been the senator charged with handling such issues?" I accuse, daring to wonder if he let this happen. "It is such a convenience for you I'm sure that this tragedy has led to your nomination for chancellor."

The accusation I make is clear to all ears in the room, even Panaka who I always stand at odds with is partial to it, but it is Padme whose eyes are cold as she looks upon him.

"Your highness, perhaps your sister ought to be removed from the situation at hand, her emotions seem to have overcome her."

"Senator, you almost sound like a Jedi," I say and laugh, leaving him almost disturbed. "And just as I told them earlier, now is not the time for further complacency."

"Senator, this is your arena," Padme says, having had enough with politics and sitting in a senate that will not hear her, but then says "I feel I must return to mine."

"What?" I stammer, sharing an alarmed look with Panaka.

"I've decided to go back to Naboo," she says, and while I may argue with her over such matters, the look in her eyes tells me there is no arguing with her on this. 

We will not achieve anything further here. It is time to take things into our own hands.

"Your majesty be realistic," Palpatine panics. "They'll force you to sign the treaty."

He goes to follow her but I step between them, forcing him to stand in place. 

"I will sign no treaty senator," Padme says with a bite in her voice. "My fate will be no different to that of our people. Captain, ready my ship."

She leaves with Panaka, leaving me alone with Palpatine.

"You best please my sister or the chancellor won't be the only one facing a vote of no confidence," I warn him, and he knows I mean my words. "Do not return to Naboo unless you are successful in prosecuting the Trade Federation, and if you do find yourself chancellor you best remember it was our peoples blood that got you there." 

He eyes me carefully, where he's seen me only as an inconvenience he sees me for what I truly am, a threat.

"I will be keeping a close eye on you, Lady Amidala," he says slowly and I turn my back on him without another word to go to Padme who stands with her handmaidens, prepared for whatever may come. 

"We will go home," I promise her. "And we will all do whatever we must to free our people, damn the senate."

There's a shadow of a smile on her face. "I've been waiting for you to say that."

[the-last-kenobi]

Hi, how are you? Hope all is well) Can you please write "Where have you been" with Anakin and a very very depressed and sad Obi?

Of course!

From this various prompts list.

I admit I wasn’t sure exactly which angle you were hoping for, but this is the one my brain liked, so here we are.

_

Anakin’s hand shook slightly as he ran the cloth over the glass mug, turning it in his hands. Water beaded up in the wake of his first attempt, so he went back again a little slower, making sure he left no smudges behind. Then he carefully placed it in the cabinet where it belonged, each shelf lined with different mugs, most of them glass, a few of them seemingly random — porcelain, wood, something that looked like clay, a deep red crystalline substance.

Anakin knew that the ones that weren’t glass had all, once, belonged to Qui-Gon.

They were used rarely. Carefully. Cherished like treasures.

The rest, the glass, those were Obi-Wan’s.

He liked the perfection of glass, its transparency, the way he could watch the teas he brewed and steeped changing, colors swirling and fading beneath his fingers.

Anakin found them difficult to maintain and hard to clean.

His hand shook again, and he quickly put down the towel and set aside the next mug, turning away from the still untidy kitchen.

His gloved metal hand raked through his hair.

It was late.

It was very late.

He walked to the window and brushed aside the curtain with one hand, confronted first with his own ghostly reflection, and then focusing on the view outside. It was pouring down rain. A rare enough occurrence here on Coruscant, and tonight, of all nights, when Obi-Wan could be out there.

He could be anywhere.

Anakin didn’t know.

Obi-Wan had been missing for twenty-nine hours.

He had walked out of their shared quarters while Anakin was visiting Padmé, sometime in the early evening yesterday, leaving his cloak behind, leaving his lightsaber behind.

And then he was gone.

Anakin had searched all the usual places. He’d reached out to Dex, and alerted Mace Windu and Healer Che, and sent Ahsoka to check with the crèche and Initiates dorm in case he was there playing with and teaching the little ones. He’d contacted Bail and Padmé, and gained permission after the twelve hour mark to examine the security holos.

There was nothing.

It was as if Obi-Wan Kenobi had stepped over the threshold of their door and just fallen out of existence.

Anakin watched rain lash against the window, scattering his pale reflection into twisted fragments, and tried to remind himself that he had already been searching for twenty-five hours straight. That he hadn’t slept or eaten. That Master Koon had forbidden him from going out into the storm to search, when they already had rested and armored troopers doing a steady sweep of the Temple perimeter, even when they didn’t know if Obi-Wan had actually left the grounds.

The Temple was massive.

He could be hiding in an unused wing, or in the depths of the dustiest levels, or in the back of the Archives, or the towers.

No, not the Archives. Master Nu had already searched there and that woman would never miss so much as a hair out of place in her domain, much less a High Councilor.

Anakin had heard Master Mundi making noises about a possible trap or an abduction.

And while that was bad — nightmarish — to contemplate, Anakin had his own fears, and they felt much more realistic, much too close for comfort.

Anakin flung himself down on the sofa with his head in his hands and tried not to admit that he was frightened.

He had seen Obi-Wan like this before. Back when they were a new partnership and Qui-Gon was dead but there was still so much of him living in the Temple, like the mugs, one still the on the countertop with a faint imprint of his lips staining the rim, or his spare cloaks and boots, and the trinkets and potted plants that filled every available space. And Obi-Wan had...

Well. Whenever he thought Anakin wasn’t paying attention, he was so quiet. He barely slept for days and then slept too much. He hardly ate and then ate random things at random times. He hardly smiled.

He wandered off.

Alone.

The worst time had been when Anakin was six months in to his apprenticeship. He had woken up with a terribly bad feeling to find his Master missing from his bed, and with the unerring instinct of a worried child, he had shot off in search of Master Yoda, who had quietly raised the alarm amongst the older Masters. It was Master Windu who had found Obi-Wan, quiet and shrunken and apathetic, concealed in one of the many gardens, letting the life of the garden conceal his dimming force signature from view.

Anakin had clung to him like he was about to disappear, and Obi-Wan hadn’t seemed to really process that he was there...

Eventually he had pulled out of it. Anakin didn’t know how.

But this...

Anakin had been worried since Geonosis that he would lose his Master to death on the battlefield. Then there had been Ventress and Jabiim and Grievous and Dooku and Maul — Maul — and suddenly it felt like Obi-Wan was never safe. The war and his enemies chased him everywhere.

But Obi-Wan had lost friends and peers and younglings he had once taught or cradled in his arms when they were so very small, and his Master’s murderer had come back like a resurrected demon to plague him, to threaten his life and sanity and everyone he loved — and Satine had already paid with her life.

Others might.

And when Anakin had come racing back home from 500 Republica when he’d heard the news, it was already too late, and Obi-Wan had gone off all alone stars knew where.

That was enough.

Anakin leapt to his feet, his body trembling with fear and nausea, determined to ignore orders.

Damn their kindness and responsibility, damn the fact that he’d probably only get soaked and miserable, he was going out searching again.

Anakin strode towards the door on shaking legs.

It swung open before he neared it, and there was Obi-Wan.

Anakin gaped at him.

Obi-Wan stared blankly back. “...Anakin?”

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin breathed, staring at him, taking him in. He was without his cloak and lightsaber, as he had known he would be, and was soaking wet — completely sopping, as if he had swum in a lake rather than wandered about in a rainstorm.

“Obi-Wan,” he said again, his voice strained. “Where have you been?”

His Master continued to look blank. “I went out.”

“You went out? You’ve been gone for well over a day!” Anakin cried out. “Where have you been?”

Obi-Wan shrank away from the shouting. His blue eyes flickered around the room as if looking for an answer, or perhaps an escape, and still his expression was utterly detached. “I... I don’t know, really. Here and there.”

A pause.

“Was I really gone for so long?” he asked. He sounded distantly, disinterestedly bewildered, and Anakin broke.

“Yes!” he shouted, his face screwed up in anger, in an attempt to hold back childish tears. “Yes you have! You disappeared! There are people looking for you, and the Council was worried you’d been taken, and I was so— I was — so — I— you can’t do that to me, Obi-Wan, please, I was losing my mind!”

Obi-Wan’s blank expression finally shifted.

A look of confusion and worry built behind the vague blue eyes, and Anakin launched himself at his friend like he had all those years ago, locking his limbs around him in a fierce hug.

For a long moment it was like hugging a statue. A very cold, very wet statue that shivered ever so slightly.

But Anakin held on, determined to keep Obi-Wan right here, to keep him safe and warm, to make him understand that he was needed, that he could also rest, that it would all be okay if he just stayed. Stayed like he had before. His tunics began to absorb some of the icy moisture coming off his Master but he kept holding on, his face buried in Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

And slowly, Obi-Wan came to life.

His hands inched upwards to rest against his Padawan’s back, and he tilted his head so that he was leaning against Anakin’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice muffled. “I had no idea you’d be so concerned.”

“I wasn’t concerned, you absolute idiot, I was scared,” Anakin hissed, the confession both bitter and relieving on his lips. “How would you feel if I vanished with no word? For thirty hours?”

A long silence.

“Well,” Obi-Wan said thoughtfully, “I would be impressed with Padmé for not getting bored of you long before that.”

There was a dead silence.

Then a spluttered, incredulous laugh, and it took Anakin a moment to realize it was he who was laughing. His shoulders shook with it, with shock at the revelation of what Obi-Wan knew, that he wasn’t angry about it, that he was cracking stupid, mean, dumb jokes about it when Anakin was trying to be mad at him.

Obi-Wan chuckled quietly, and Anakin laughed harder, delighted that his friend was smiling, if only a little.

“You’re not off the hook you know,” he mumbled, guiding Obi-Wan to his rooms, planning on forcing him to take a hot shower and drink warm tea and maybe pull out one of Qui-Gon’s old cloaks, because that always helped.

“Neither are you,” Obi-Wan mumbled back, and squeezed his hand every so briefly.

~

When Plo Koon dropped by to check on Anakin, very early the next morning, he found him sleeping soundly on a chair, snoring quietly, his feet propped on the arm of the sofa, where Obi-Wan was fast asleep with an old cloak that was far too large for him draped over his body.

It was easy to forgive them to forgetting to inform the Guard to call off the search.

Mace could pretend to yell at them during their next Council meeting, during which, he was sure, the two friends would stand side by side, mischief in their eyes.

~

[8uggestionamplifie6]

I've been thinking. Would Anakin and Padme actually be good parents?????

Like, think about this realistically.

Anakin already has a kark ton of problems. For one, he does NOT know how to love unpossessively. Two, he is already super controlling and kinda toxic(?).

If he leaves the Jedi Order to be with Padme and the twins, he would never learn the difference between attachment and love.

(And yes there is a freaking difference. Love is when you care about someone to the point where you want them to be happy, even if it's not with you. Attachment is when you 'love' someone so much that you can't stand the thought of that person being with someone else that isn't you. There is a very clear difference. Even George Lucas said it in a few interviews.)

Like, I'm pretty sure Obi-Wan tried to teach Anakin the difference, but Anakin just never understood it or didn't want to accept it. Anakin wasn't raised in the Temple. He wasn't taught Jedi beliefs and the difference between love and attachment on a daily basis by the creche masters. Instead, he had been freed from slavery, separated from his mother, Qui-Gon got killed, and he experienced a MASSIVE culture shock once he was accepted into the Temple, and he had been paired with an (although good) unwilling master AKA Obi-Wan who only accepted Anakin as his student because of Qui-Gon's final words.

Yes, I know, they do eventually develop an actual strong relationship, but the main reason Obi-Wan fought for Anakin to become his padawan in the first place was because of Qui-Gon. The only reason why Anakin was even accepted into the Order was because of Qui-Gon and later, Obi-Wan's insistence to keep his promise to Qui-Gon.

(Also? Really Qui-Gon? You had nothing to say to your Padawan who was basically your son? Even when you appeared in the Clone Wars, you hardly even cared about Obi-Wan, you just obsessing over Anakin. Like, I get that he's the 'Chosen One' or whatever, but I don't care. You don't treat your apprentice/son like that. And then you had the audacity to force a guilty and crying Obi-Wan who was holding your dying body to promise to train Anakin Skywalker, who Obi-Wan didn't even like for that matter? Like? Bish, you ungrateful nerfherder.)

As I said, Anakin doesn't understand how to love like securely and non-possessively. He was probably taught it by Obi-Wan and the rest of the Jedi, but that information clearly went through one ear and straight out the other.

Maybe Anakin would be a good parent for the first few years of Leia and Luke's lives, but the moment puberty hits? BAM! Helicopter parent right there!

This mainly concerns Leia because in Anakin's mind, she's a girl, she's not a trained force-sensitive, so she can't protect herself, and she's HIS daughter, she shouldn't do this or that, she can't have this or that. She can't have male friends, she can't hang out with any guys, etc. Because Anakin doesn't want Leia to not spend time with him or not be there constantly. He's controlling and he wants to control her life. Like I said, she is HIS daughter, not her own person (scroll all the way to the bottom for an explanation). He'd likely refuse to let Leia go to any parties, talk to any boys, or even have a basic social life.

Things might be a little different for Luke. Anakin might not be as controlling but will still be controlling to some degree.

Moreover, Padme would NOT reign him in or even stop him. She's already shown in AOTC and ROTS that she is perfectly willing to make excuses for any and all of Anakin's bad terrible decisions even though the evidence is right there in front of her face.

Like, she seriously tryna make me believe that killing a ton of innocent people in the Tusken village is good? Sure, maybe SOME of them might have deserved it, but all of them? No, they didn't, especially not the poor innocent kids. Like, Padme, is you good in thy head or not? You ain't see no red flags?🚩🚩🚩 anybody?

Also, in ROTS, she knows that Anakin is fully capable and willing to kill innocent people if he believes someone he loves is in danger/dead, but when Obi-Wan tells her what Anakin did in the Temple to the Younglings, she tryna act all slick like, "I don't be knowing what you talkin about", even though she clearly does. She seen Anakin confess what he did to the Tuskens and now she tryna lie? And on her death bed, she tryna convince me and Obi-Wan that Darth Vader is still good, like, did the dude NOT just strangle you and kill a bunch of innocent people?

I may be dumb, but I'm not THAT dumb, okay? I understand what murder is. Anakin just straight up shanked all of the Jedi in the Temple with the 501st.

Like, bruh, I get you smart and all, Padme, and you a senator and all, but I don't know if have any more brain cells than I do money when it comes to Anakin. And I have 0 dollars right now.

So, like, no, I don't think Padme would stop Anakin in the slightest. She'd probably make more excuses for him, like "that's how he shows his love for you" or "just get over it, Leia" or even "he's your father, let him do what he wants".

In short, the freaking helicopter parenting would continue and Luke and Leia are gonna be trapped because they ain't no trained Jedi. They can't do shit and they are still minors.

Leia/Luke might even run away from home or even Fall (*extreme case**very extreme and unlikely but still possible*) 'cause they are force-sensitive y'know.

Freaking Court might even get involved. Some lawyers might also be called up. Luke and Leia better make sure to dial the numbers of some therapists for their parents, too, and also maybe a mind healer. Neither of your parents are straight in their heads.

Anyways, none of yall gotta agree with me 'cause this is just my opinion, but at least look at it from my point of view first before you hate on me in the comments. Like, I really hope that Anakin and Padme would be good parents but I just don't see it working out (????).

I hghly recommend this fanfic for any interested reader. It explains the problems of helicopter parenting from Anakin very nicely, so please read it. Also, please read some of the comments.

There's more!!! ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Let me share something:

"A desperate parent hovers; a good parent guides."

Every parent needs to learn to let go of their kids eventually. The kids are going to leave the nest sooner or later and the parent needs to understand this.

Maybe, during the first 15 years or so, the parent can hover, but once that kid starts wanting to be independent, you gotta start giving that kid some space.

Like a bird, they gotta spread their wings and they can't do that if they stay cooped up in the nest for the rest of their lives. No baby bird is gonna fly immediately after they gain their wings and feathers. They gotta stretch them out first, do a few practice runs, and then they'll finally know how to fly.

Same thing for your kids. If they want independence but you know that they can't handle it yet, just give it to them. They gotta learn somehow. They gotta practice. And you just gotta be there to catch them if they fall.

You can stop hovering and instead start guiding. Because your son/daughter isn't just YOUR child anymore—they're becoming their own person and you need to realize and accept that. They're becoming an adult and your equal, so you gotta stop treating them like they're just your kid. Bc they're both your kid and their own person and you gotta realize that.

You can't keep your kids in the nest forever. Sooner or later, they're gonna rebel against your hovering and they'll cut you out of their lives bc you're being a toxic influence on them and they know it. Then, despite all your desperate hovering to keep your kids safe and in the nest, YOU are going to be the reason why your kids don't want you in their lives anymore.

You just gotta let go.

Yes, you can hover like a desperate parent for the first ten and a half years of your kids' lives, but eventually you're gonna have to stop doing that. Because they aren't dumb ten year olds anymore that need your constant hovering. Now they're teens and now they're adults who are experiencing the real world.

And the only thing you can do is accept that your kid has grown up. Or they will grow up. Or they are growing up.

You just need to cross the line from hovering to guiding.

You gotta let go of the bike sometime and let your kid ride on their own without the training wheels.

You just gotta cross that line. Maybe it'll be a little hard, but when was parenting ever easy? I know that it'll hurt to have to let your kids go, but you just gotta trust them.

You have already spent the last nearly two decades loving them, caring for them, and teaching them all you know. You just have to hope that they'll keep your lessons and teachings close to their hearts and that they'll listen to the occasional advice or two.

You just gotta trust your kid and your parenting skills, and cross that line.

Your son/daughter has become their own person. And the only thing you can do is be there for them, be ready to support them, be ready to give some of your wisdom, and trust that they'll succeed.

For helicopter parents, however, they never cross that line between hovering and guiding, and I'm not sure Anakin would be able to either.

[dai-bendu-conlang]

Qui-Gon’s Last Words in Dai-Bendu — a Meta/Explanation

So very early into this project, loosingletters and I (ghostwriter) watched The Phantom Menace together, and when Qui-Gon died, we looked at each other and were like “We can make this way sadder in translation, can’t we?” 

And so off we went, with that goal in mind. 

Because we went into this thinking “can we improve this interaction via language/translation?”  we need to first first explain why we don’t love Qui-Gon’s last words in canon, to then explain why we made the changes that we did.

The reasons are as follows:

Qui-Gon’s last words have nothing to do with Obi-Wan, the person he is saying goodbye to.

His last words being an order about Anakin left a weird taste in our mouths

We wanted this to feel more intimate and more emotional

So, we started with ways we could change the connotation of the words being used. We came at it from a lens of assuming that the dialogue was a classic “bad translation” of what was actually said; as in, someone translated the literal meanings of the words into English, and lost a lot of the social meanings that the words might have in their original contexts. 

Here are Qui-Gon’s original last words, in canon:

Obi-Wan: Master! Master! Qui-Gon: It’s too late. It’s too… Obi-Wan: No! Qui-Gon: Obi-Wan, promise...promise me you'll train the boy Obi-Wan: Yes, Master Qui-Gon: He is the chosen one...he will...bring balance...train him!

(Sidenote: upon actually looking up the dialogue, we were honestly shocked by how, like. Bare bones it is. And how pretty much all the emotion of that scene comes only from Neeson and McGregor acting their hearts out. So, kudos.)

When looking at this dialogue, we singled out the following things as points we could build on: 

Jedi cultural values regarding teaching (which we all have a lot of Feelings about)

The word “promise”

The whole idea of balance

And then we proceeded to go to town. 

The Dai Bendu translation of this dialogue is as follows:

Obi-Wan: Jaieh! Jaieh! Qui-Gon: Im enoh...nev forpai paikazah Obi-Wan: Shet. Qui-Gon: Obi-Wan, ikio… ikio fehl paipadenji keel nev paqorak. Obi-Wan: Haj dai, Jaieh. Qui-Gon: Enoah kar... daisha. Pauji... kar aimato’ak. Paden... karak.

Firstly, the things we didn’t change, ie: pretty much all of Obi-Wan’s dialogue.

Obi-Wan says, in order, “Master, Master!” (though he uses the Jedi-specific word for it, which also translates to “teacher”), “No.” and “Yes, Master,” just like in the original script. The most significant thing here is that the Dai Bendu word for “Yes” directly translates to “Force-Wills,” which could be read as some unintentional, ouchy subtext that both implies that Obi-Wan is agreeing with Qui-Gon’s point about Anakin being the Chosen One as a final act of comfort (because he’s expressed doubt about the possibility before), as well as conceding to both himself, Qui-Gon, and the universe that the Force has willed his Master’s death. 

Next, the things that changed from the script mostly as a symptom of the ways that Dai Bendu is different from English/Basic. For instance, Qui-Gon refers to Anakin as “the child” rather than “the boy,” because Dai Bendu does not express gender in that way. Instead of saying “it’s too late,” a more word-for-word direct translation of “Im enoh nev forpai paikazah” would be “no time is left,” which both lines up with how we imagine time works in Dai Bendu (link here), and is more natural to the way Dai Bendu handles sentence structure (“it’s too late” is a very English sentence construction). 

And now we get to the meaning changes. Other than changing the structure, “im enoh nev forpai paikazah” also adds “pai,” our consequential prefix, to “kazah,” which is the present-tense of the verb “kaza” or “to leave.” That makes the sentence mean something like “no time is left, and because of that the future has changed.” This is essentially Qui-Gon admitting to both himself and to Obi-Wan that his death is going to change, at the very least, Obi-Wan’s future forever, and also the future of the entire universe (though whether or not Qui-Gon knows this last part, in a Force-saturated moment right before death, is unclear in both the original version and our version). 

Qui-Gon’s next line is “Obi-Wan, ikio… ikio fehl paipadenji keel nev paqorak.” Again, we have the consequential prefix, this time attached to “paden,” which means “to guide/to teach,” here in the future tense. The implication of that being something like “teach him and it will alter the future.” Adding the consequential prefix to something which is already in the future tense is considered repetitive — comparable to saying something like “it is so enormously big” in English. A native speaker making the choice to add it here illustrates a conscious emphasis. Qui-Gon is really trying to express how important he thinks teaching Anakin is. 

We also have a lot of Thoughts and Feelings about the Jedi as a people who are dedicated to teaching as a cultural value. On top of being archivists and having/keeping a vast collection of knowledge, Jedi do pretty much nothing but study/learn their entire lives. They are dedicated diplomats and so on, but outside of that they seem to want to foster understanding and that in-and-of itself is always a lesson. In TCW, for instance, everything is a teachable moment for someone. The fact that so much careful consideration is put into who you pick as your Padawan, and that you retain a deep connection to them even when the apprenticeship is over, shows that this connection and this act of teaching is immensely important. It is considered a standard part of each Jedi’s life to step into that teaching role at least once — nearly every Jedi takes on at least one apprentice. If you take Obi-Wan as an example, he spent half his time in the PT being a student, and then the other half being a teacher. So here, Qui-Gon is taking one of their culture’s most important values and handing it to Obi-Wan. 

Then we have the word for “promise” we used, “ikio.” While we have a standard word for promise, “aima,” the word that Qui-Gon uses here instead is one with more cultural meaning. “Ikio” refers to a very specific kind of promise, something like “promise me because you love me,” or “promise me because I trust you above all.”  The word dates back to the Jedi-Sith schism, where it was used as an oath to state that you trust this person to take your lightsaber and bring it back to your home temple, should you die in battle.

Which means that, holistically, the line “Obi-Wan, ikio… ikio fehl paipadenji keel nev paqorak” both places the highest amount of trust possible in Obi-Wan’s hands, while also stating that Qui-Gon believes him ready of preforming one of their most culturally important values, and trusts him implicitly to carry that out. 

Finally, the line “Enoah kar... daisha. Pauji... kar aimato’ak. Paden... karak.” Some of this is, again, just us having words in Dai Bendu which Basic doesn’t have. “Daisha” is the word for Chosen One, the one referred to as such specifically to that old prophecy Qui-Gon likes so much. It’s a word that all Jedi would be familiar with, but usually in the context of folk tales. It’s like calling someone “The Once and Future King.” (Which also makes Qui-Gon talking to the Council way funnier — “hey guys, I found King Arthur!” “what the fuck??”). Qui-Gon also uses the third person Jedi/in-community pronouns when referring to Anakin, showing that he already thinks of this kid as a Jedi. 

Then there is the concept of “aimato,” here in the accusative case as “aimato’ak.” Aimato is the word for “cosmic balance,” which is both a very important idea in Jedi philosophy, and also a very big and abstract concept. And like any other big and abstract concept which has a large impact on lives and culture, like Love or Brotherhood or Democracy or God, it’s something that individual people and individual Jedi have different conceptions of and ideas about. This is a culture of warrior-philosophers — pretty much everyone has a slightly different theory as to what aimato/”cosmic balance” is supposed to mean and what it will look like when it is achieved, or if it’s possible to achieve, from "it means that one day the Force shows itself to all people" to "it's about finding balance within only yourself" to "it means that evil will finally stand down" to "it means that all who strive for it will achieve peace" to "it's in tiny everyday moments." People sit around and debate this for hours. 

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan deeply disagree on it’s definition, given their specialties in the Living vs. Unifying Force, and have essentially had an ongoing debate about it for years. It’s an old, comfortable argument both of them know that neither is ever going to win. They could both probably recite the other’s points in their sleep. However, it’s something they end up going back to every time they have a spare moment with nothing else to do. 

Qui-Gon bringing it up here is not only referring to something very important in their culture, it’s almost like referencing an old, treasured inside joke between him and his student, which is something Obi-Wan would pick up on right away. 

So, to summarize; we attempted to modify this very... Anakin-focused last dialogue, and instead make it about Qui-Gon telling Obi-Wan he trusts him above all, specifically to teach (which, again, with Jedi and their teaching focused culture is a HUGE thing) and to continue their discussions and keep their traditions going with this child.

It’s also a fun thought experiment in translation studies — sometimes, things really can get lost in a one-for-one translation of something, when cultural and collaborative meaning aren’t considered and translated accordingly. 

Thank you for reading!

[jasontoddiefor]

Anakin and Obi-Wan switch lightsaber forms, but make it a character study. Written for @isolde-and-monsters

Perseverance

In the aftermath of Naboo, watching his new Padawan sleep while his own braid was wrapped around his hand, Obi-Wan decided he could not endure another loss of this magnitude. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the Sith in front of his eyes, his attacks so much faster than Obi-Wan’s, his strikes more powerful.

Obi-Wan had never wanted power, not in the way he found himself starved for it now. He had butted heads with Qui-Gon often enough, but never when it came to his lightsaber form. For all that Qui-Gon’s teaching methods could be all over the place, in this, they were not. He made Obi-Wan run more drills than any other Padawan and never failed to correct even the slightest mistake. A few of his Master’s friends made jokes about Qui-Gon’s own padawanhood that left him rolling his eyes and pointedly ask Obi-Wan for his opinion on his own education.

Obi-Wan had only ever smiled and asked for another lesson.

His Master had been an excellent fighter, one of the best duelists their Order had and yet, perhaps due to making up for Obi-Wan’s lack of skill, he had lost.

Ataru had felt like a pattern out of tune ever since. Where once it was the winds guiding Obi-Wan to the skies, it now felt like wild currents dragging him down. When Obi-Wan tried to find the right rhythm, he found himself repeating steps that lead nowhere but towards uncertainty, fear, and anger. He needed to try something different, needed to switch, before his doubts threatened to consume him whole.

Anakin mumbled something in his sleep and the blanket slipped from his shoulders. Despite yawning multiple times, he had refused to go to bed, wanting to stay up with Obi-Wan. A smile sneaked itself onto Obi-Wan’s face when he wrapped Anakin in a blanket, only for the boy to snuggle up to him, searching for another source of heat. Anakin was struggling at the Temple, not just because of all the years he’d missed out on, but because of he was fighting against the horrors he had already endured.

It was a Master’s duty to protect their Padawan, carry the weight of the galaxy on their back so that a student could learn to thrive in their own time.

Anakin shouldn’t be forced to helplessly watch Obi-Wan die.

He picked up Djem So the following day when Anakin was in class. He needed a weapon that wasn’t restrained to one area, something that would teach him to stand his ground, defend, and attack at the same time. Nobody commented on the fact that it was particularly well-suited for lightsaber combat.

(They didn’t need to. Obi-Wan knew what he was doing.)

Resilience

Anakin was an angry child. He could feel his rage boiling beneath his skin like a sun, scorching, burning all that it touched when he lost control and lashed out. Even when he didn’t mean to, it just all rose to the surface and Anakin exploded, the weight of the universe behind him, ready to drown out everyone and everything within range.

It exhausted him.

In the aftermath of his tantrums, be they because of selfish and uncaring politicians or because the other Padawans kept pushing him and Anakin thought he couldn’t keep up, it all ended similarly.

Anakin, on his own, choking on tears he didn’t dare cry because he still tasted Tatooine on his tongue and heard his mother’s voice in his ears, reminding him to be careful with his heart. This didn’t feel like keeping his soul safe and his mind moonlit instead of sun-starved.

The Force called him by a name and fate Anakin felt much too small for and he didn’t know how to handle it, how to endure, how to stop breaking.

He curled his left hand to a fist, his nails dug crescent marks into his skin as he waited for Obi-Wan to scold him. His Master was the best the Order had and Anakin wanted to live up to all his expectations, but so very often, he felt as if he were failing him instead.

“I don’t think this is working out,” Obi-Wan commented and turned off his lightsaber, clipping it to his belt again.

Anakin bit his lips, stared at his feet. Obi-Wan was finally allowing Anakin to specialize in a lightsaber form after years of training, and he couldn’t keep up, follow Obi-Wan as naturally as he should. He was good in combat, one of the best in his age group, and yet Anakin struggled when he shouldn’t, too quickly overcome by the need to lash out.

“Anakin, are you sure you want to specialize in Djem So?”

He looked up and instead of seeing Obi-Wan’s disappointment, he found interest instead.

“Yes!” Anakin replied quickly. “Of course! I can do it, I swear, I just need more training.”

“I don’t doubt your capabilities, Anakin. You’d be a formidable fighter. I just wonder whether another form wouldn’t suit you more.”

Confused, Anakin searched for the signs of a joke in Obi-Wan’s expression, but he was dead serious. “Like what?” Anakin asked.

“Soresu,” Obi-Wan answered. “You’re quick, but your speed often leads to you getting overeager. You have a lot of energy and could easily outlast any opponent if you contained yourself a little more and I think it would lift the stress of your shoulders.”

“I’m not stressed,” Anakin protested immediately, pretending he wasn’t lying to himself.

Obi-Wan cracked a slight smile at that and playfully tugged at Anakin’s braid before he could duck away. “I apologize for making such an assumption, Padawan. I know you demand more of yourself than anyone else, but you need not be sword and shield at the same time. Grow for yourself first and the galaxy after.”

Obi-Wan’s words made sense, somehow. Anakin had always thought that Soresu was kind of boring, but maybe he did need just a bit of a break, time to calm down and learn how to breathe again without sand forcing its way down his throat. And if Anakin’s defense got a bit better, he might be able to finally stop all of Obi-Wan’s attacks. He could always switch to another Form later.

“Okay,” he agreed. “What’s the first stance?”

(Anakin never did end up switching his fighting style, relying on the steady beat of drums to keep his head clear and his thoughts structured when the world seemed so keen to break him apart. He did not jump into battle against the traitorous Jedi, the Sith, remaining at his Master’s side.

And when they drop a small spitfire Padawan in front of him in the middle of a war that had already claimed too many lives, he hoped he could teach her this lesson as well.)

[alrighty-anubis]

I would never be angry at you (Anakin & Obi-Wan)

2No Warnings Apply 

During a game of twenty questions Anakin finds out that his master isn't the perfect Jedi. This sparks his confession about the Tusken Raiders and his marriage to Padme.

(Mentioned Obi-Wan X Cody)

Find it on AO3

Obi-Wan entered their shared quarters and flopped onto his bunk, all the grace of a Jedi Master replaced with exhaustion.

“Bad day?” Anakin asked, words mumbled by his mouth stuffed full with sweets.

“Yes.”

This was an under-exaggeration, Anakin thought, if the man hadn’t told him off for talking with food in his mouth.

Obi-Wan pulled his outer-robes and boots off before reaching under his bed.

“What is that?”

“Wine.”

“That does not look like wine, Master-”

“It's from Bail. Old, strong and illegal in 12 systems.”

“Master,” Anakin drawled out, knowing his tolerance was nothing compared to the other’s and if Obi-Wan admitted it was strong…

Obi-Wan sighed and reached behind the drawers, retrieving another (Anakin-friendly) bottle.

“How did you know that was there?”

“I’m your Master, you can’t hide things from me.”

“Why didn’t you confiscate it, then?” Anakin asked, confused by his rule-following Master allowing Anakin to stash alcohol - he’d been using that space since he was 15.

“You’re an adult now, Anakin. And quite frankly I was just glad you had friends.”

“Hey-” _________

Anakin and Obi-Wan were leaning against each other on his bunk.

“I know,” Anakin smirked, “How about we play a game.”

“Oh?” Obi-Wan looked down at Anakin.

“Twenty questions.”

Obi-Wan let out a breath laugh of amusement. “Okay, then. When was the last time you tested Ahsoka on her cultural studies?”

Anakin scowled.

“Well, you’re lucky I’ve been taking over the theory instruction of our Padawan.”

“My Padawan.”

“When she’s misbehaving.”

“Hey! Anyway, I have a question. Would you rather kiss Windu or Plo Koon?”

“It's Master’s Windu and Koon” Obi-Wan corrected.

“So you don’t mind speculating about which one you’d kiss, but the lack of ‘Master’ is where you draw the line?”

“I would kiss Plo, he is a dear friend of mine and quite frankly not as scary.”

Anakin laughed, “You’re afraid of Windu?”

“Like you aren’t," Obi-Wan feigned thinking before planting a smirk on his face, "Okay, what is your Grievous tactic?”

“How do you know that?” Anakin burst out.

“I just have a second sense when it comes to your stupidity,”

“I swear if Rex told you-”

“Wrong trooper.”

“Wrong trooper! Which other ones have you been hanging out with? Wait. Are you stealing my men?”

Obi-Wan just smiled.

“Fine. Ahsoka sits on my shoulders and we wield four sabers like him.”

“By the force, Anakin -”

“We spin them manically and-”

“Wait. Where did you get the fourth lightsaber?” Obi-Wan interrupted

Anakin grew quiet, his voice reluctant, “Sometimes Cody doesn’t return it to you immediately, and we both know he’s weak to Ahsoka’s tooka eyes, like most of the men,” Anakin trailed off. Just as Obi-Wan was going to scald him he carried on, “What would you do if you weren’t a Jedi?”

Obi-Wan decided to let go of his line of questioning in hopes of avoiding going grey early. “I don’t know - I’d want to help people. I could say something rather Jedi-like, such as work the land. But I’m afraid I was put off that when I was sent to the Agricorps. Realistically, I’d probably still be a general as I am now - just without a lightsaber. As much as I hate war and the bloodshed that comes with it - I am rather good at it. As much as I try to be the perfect Jedi, my skills lay in an area which juxtaposes that. It is ironic, I suppose, that I was never meant to be a Jedi Knight, I become one anyway, and then my speciality recognised by the Council is the furthest thing from peace.”

“What?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes narrowed on his glass and his signature resonated with shame, “I had planned on never telling you that. But it just felt like you needed to know. I’m sorry if I’ve shattered your image of me.”

Anakin’s face lit up with relief, “You’re not perfect”, he breathed out.

“No,” Obi-Wan’s low chuckle was exasperated and self loathing, “No, Anakin, I’ve never been perfect.”

“Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

“Because I was ashamed of my past, still am. I was a run-of-the-mill youngling: too much anger and too much pride. No Masters wanted me and I was sent to the Agricorps.”

“What do you mean no Master wanted you? You and Qui-Gon were so close!”

Obi-Wan looked down and moved away from Anakin. “We weren’t as close as you think, these memories are from when you were young and naïve. We were too different, we fought and I always knew he didn’t want me. You saw how quickly he threw me away for you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You were the best thing to come from him,” Obi-Wan’s voice was steeped in a resentment that Anakin had never thought possible.

“You were angry. As a youngling”

“Very much so. Anger and attachment were always my biggest pitfalls. I’ve worked hard on them, but I’m afraid my issues with attachments have grown rather than disappeared.”

Anakin smiled at that, taking Obi-Wan’s hand, “You know, I never realised how much like me you were. Nearly as much as a disappointment to the Jedi.”

Obi-Wan laughed, body shaking as a smile replaced his reminiscent scowl, “Well, only one of us has left the order.”

“You’re joking”

“No, Melida/Daan. Qui-Gon wouldn’t stay to help the children in the war. I did.”

“Your experience being a General before this?”

“Yes.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, comfortable in each other's presence. But as Anakin stewed in the other’s words his anxiety leaked into the force.

“This could have really helped me when I was a Padawan.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It was selfish to want to maintain the way you saw me - the perfect Jedi.”

“I always compared myself to you, looked up to you, I resented you for a bit because of it.”

“I know. And I knew at the time. I was not the Master you needed.”

“You were the best Master you could be,”

Obi-Wan laughed self-deprecatingly.

“No, Master, I mean it. You weren’t the problem. I was,” Anakin paused and wringed his hands as he considered his next words, “My anger was-is a problem. I have done things I regret and that you would hate me for.”

Obi-Wan’s shock at that statement had him sitting straight and placing a hand on Anakin’s cheek, “No, Anakin, I could never hate you, never, you’re my Padawan. I love you.”

Anakin recoiled from the touch, not believing he deserved his Master’s love at this moment. A man so ashamed of leaving the Jedi to save children in a way zone as a Padawan. Anakin had much worse things to be ashamed of. Things he didn’t think Obi-Wan could ever even imagine himself doing. Tears gathered in his eyes as he looked down at his lap through his lashes.

“I killed the Tusken Raiders. They hurt my mother - she’s dead - and I killed them all,” the tears began streaming down his cheeks.

“Oh, oh, Anakin, dearest” Obi-Wan whispered.

Anakin couldn’t stand that tone. He stood up and began passing. Eyes puffy and hands shaking, he began to shout, “I cut them down and felt nothing. The children - they screamed for their mothers - like I had - and I cut them down like animals. I hated them. And the dark, the dark it curled around me - it was like someone was choking me and cutting me off from my body and my emotions like I was a puppet killing them all.”

He grabbed his hair tightly in his hands and pulled, sinking down to the ground, “I killed them, I killed them,” it was as if the fog had cleared and Anakin was realising this for the first time.

“Hey,” Obi-Wan stepped forward and gently grasped his Padawan’s wrists, trying to untangle his hair from his unyielding grip, “Anakin, stop. You’re hurting yourself.”

“I hurt them.”

“Yes, you did. And you can’t change that,” Obi-Wan took a calming breath and repressed his shock and upset, his Padawan looked so small and this darkness wasn’t all his own.

“Anakin, what you did was wrong and entrenched in darkness. But you are light. This action hasn’t changed that. And I do not think it happened without influence. But Anakin, so many Jedi struggle with the dark. We have the power to enact our own judgement and no one can stop us. That is why we need to stop ourselves. And this time you didn’t. You can’t bring back the Tuskens, but you can let go of your anger and make sure this won't happen again.”

“I don’t know how to let it go.”

“Oh, Anakin-”

“It is so deep inside me, tangled with all the light,” Anakin let Obi-Wan take his hands away from his hair, staring far into his eyes, “Master, help.”

“I wish I had seen this sooner. Anakin, tomorrow morning we will start. We will meditate together and I can guide you.”

“Please, I’m sorry.”

“I know, dear one,” Obi-Wan collected Anakin into his arms.

“Will you tell the council?”

“No, at least not for now.”

“They will kick me out and then I’ll have to leave you and Ahsoka and Rex and-”

“Anakin, if they expelled you we would all follow.”

“Oh. Why won’t you tell them?”

“I don’t trust them to judge the situation fairly, there is something not quite right in the council. They’re stuck in ways from times which have long passed. And Quinlan and I may be doing some under the radar investigating that which is influencing and amplifying your darkness may help.”

“You’re both taking a mission they’ve denied.”

“They can’t deny that they don’t know about.”

Anakin smiled for a moment in the comfortable silence before sombering again. “I thought you’d be angry at me,” Anakin whispered.

“No,” sadness filled Obi-Wan as he gently took Anakin’s face into his hands and placed a kiss on his forehead, “No, my Padawan, I could never be angry at you.”

He pulled a blanket to him with the force and wrapped them in it, “I wish you had told me, but I wasn’t the most approachable Master. I put walls between us unintentionally, to protect myself I guess, and you. I didn’t want you to grow attached. I knew I was and wanted to spare you the judgement and the pain. I wasn’t a good role model so part of me felt better when you despised me in your late teens. I’m truly sorry I wasn’t a better Master, Anakin. But know now, you can tell me anything and I will always love you. I raised you, all parts of you.”

“I’m sorry.” Anakin’s eyes were dry, but red and puffy, he had run out of tears and exhaustion hit him. “I’m also married to Padme.”

“I know,”

“I broke the code again.”

“Yes, but that is the order’s code - not the Jedi's.”

Anakin looked at him in confusion.

“You know, I am in a relationship of sorts with Cody.”

Anakin burst out of the blanket in shock, suddenly very awake, “Cody!”

“I thought it was obvious, even the council knows, unofficially of course. Another reason they make life harder for our lineage.”

“I didn’t know.”

“-Because you were trying so hard to conceal your own relationship. I mean, you mentioned only earlier that he carried my lightsaber.”

“I didn’t think it meant anything.”

“Aren’t I always telling you that your lightsaber is your life?”

Over the shock of the new information, desperately trying not to think about Cody and his Master, Anakin asked: “How did you know about Padme and me?”

“Everyone knows, you’re not very subtle.”

Anakin huffed in annoyance.

“It's okay, Anakin. I forgive you for everything. I only ask that you forgive me for not making sure you understood the rule of attachment and for not teaching you my own interpretation.”

“What I have to forgive you for is nothing compared to what I did.”

“And yet I forgive you. I always will so long as you realise that you were wrong and want to do better. I think we forget that the Jedi code is not what we should or can be, but an ideal we should strive for, to be as close to as we can.”

“What do you think about not allowing love?”

“I think you mean not allowing attachment. Love and attachment are different. Love is selfless, attachment selfish - something that would lead you to do anything to keep those that are yours. Attachment is possessive, love is not.”

Anakin looked as if the origins of the universe had been revealed.

“Some Jedi believe we should not love, for love leads to attachment. But to be a Jedi is to live enveloped by the force, to welcome all aspects of it. Not to command it, like the dark, but to embrace it. The force is life, and loving is such a fundamental aspect of life that to ban it is to sensor a huge chunk of the force. Jedi are taught to be compassionate, and I believe it is only by loving truly, selflessly and in a way open to all life forms that we can truly be so to all.”

“How do you stop love becoming attachment?”

“I don’t know - it's never been my strong suit. If you were taken I would tear cities apart to find you, just as you would for Ahsoka - and I would too.”

“I would for you as well.”

“I’m not sure if I should say thank you or not. I know that I would not react in a very Jedi way. I have these attachments and they won't go, and I’m not willing to work on letting them go. But if you were ever to be killed, which I pray to the force doesn’t happen, I would have to accept it. It would kill me to do so, but I would - eventually. And I have in the past. I think, the law of attachment, is recognising that you are attached but building boundaries that you won't cross. I may be angry, but I would try my hardest not to let go and act on it. I would think about how you wouldn’t want me to fall. Although this is all easier said than done.”

“I can love Padme, you, Ahsoka, Rex, my men and my droids and do everything in my power to not let them get hurt so long as I don’t hurt others in the process.”

“Yes. We are not judges. Nor do we have any right to execute our will because of our emotions. But we do have a right to feel those emotions. For example, I would travel anywhere to save you, but not if it put the lives of all my men at risk. I am responsible for them, and my attachments aren’t theirs.”

Anakin nodded and tears welled in his eyes, “I want to be like that. Good. Like you. But I wasn’t. How do I know that I will be next time?”

“You know that you can talk to me, or at least I hope you do,” Obi-Wan stood up.

“Yes,” Anakin took the other’s hand and was pulled upright, they headed towards Anakin’s bunk where Obi-Wan unceremoniously plonked him, “When did you get so wise, Master?”

“I always have been,” Obi-Wan chuckled, “You’ve just never listened before.”

Obi-Wan returned to his own bunk and laid down, closing his eyes. Just as he began to drift off Anakin woke him, “Wait, all those nighttime council meetings that were too secret for me to attend, were you fucking Cody?”

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan scalded before a blush sprayed across his cheeks, “Yes, but unlike you and Padme I enjoy the illusion of discreteness.”

“Ugh, Master, I didn’t need to know that.”

“You asked,” Obi-Wan sounded all too amused at his Padawan’s disgust. “Now rest. I’m sure tomorrow will be exhausting.”

“And yet you always tell me meditating is restful.”

“Not when you’re complaining the whole way through.”

“I won’t, I promise. Not for this. Good night, Master.”

“Good night, Anakin.”

Words: 2600

Feel free to message requests

[kylo-renakin]

Death in Star Wars, and How Ben Solo Was Shafted: A Mini Meta

Something has been bothering me about Ben’s death in The Rise of Skywalker. While I’m upset that he died, I echo the sentiments of other fans that just as offensive was the way that he died and how his death was treated in the context of the film. It bothered me because death has always been a part of Star Wars, but usually handled much better.

And so this meta was born.

I will be doing a brief analysis of significant character deaths from the Star Wars movies. I don’t want to touch on all of them because there are simply too many, so I’ll focus on the ones that were either major characters (i.e. trio billing or main villain) or narratively important (i.e. Shmi Skywalker).

This list will be approached chronologically within the Star Wars universe, beginning with:

Qui-Gon Jinn; portrayed by Liam Neeson

Personal feelings: I cried like a baby. Qui-gon holds a special place in my heart. His death was both epic and sombre. It hurt to watch other main cast celebrating their victory after defeating their respective challenges and then cut to Obi-wan cradling his master’s head in his lap, crying.

Mode of death: Killed by Darth Maul at the end of The Phantom Menace. His actual death takes a few minutes of screen time, an outburst/scream from another main character (Obi-wan). He has last words to say to the person he has the closest on screen relationship with.

Aftermath: Held by a visibly devastated Obi-wan while he died. Sombre funeral pyre. Death discussed on screen by the council and Obi-wan.

Narrative purpose: To enable Anakin’s training under Obi-wan, which is pivotal to the overall arc of this trilogy. To provide a tangible loss and character growth for Obi-wan, who failed to save his master from a Sith--later mirrored by Obi-wan’s inability to save Anakin from becoming a Sith in Episode III, thereby providing a narrative ‘tail-end’ to Obi-wan’s journey in the trilogy. To cement the master/apprentice relationship as loving, emotional, familial, which then adds narrative depth to the bond between Obi-wan and Anakin. To introduce a cohesive theme of death, failure, and loss at the hands of the dark side that would pervade this trilogy.

Overall response: This death is both emotional and narratively important. It’s given the weight and time it deserves to have an impact on the characters. 

Shmi Skywalker; portrayed by Pernilla August

Personal feelings: Rough acting aside, watching a person die in their family member’s arms is always sad. It’s an extremely dark moment in a film that otherwise leans heavily into romance, action, and detective-mystery storytelling.

Mode of death: Tortured by Tusken Raiders. Died from her injuries. Again, her actual death takes a couple of minutes of screen time. She is able to say some last words to her son, the most important character relationship for this character.

Aftermath: Dies in the arms of her visibly devastated son. Anakin murders the Tuskens for revenge. On screen funeral where she is mourned and memorialized by her family/loved ones.

Narrative purpose: To drive Anakin further to the dark side by taking advantage of his love and compassion and turning this into anger and hate (revenge against the Tuskens). To plant the seeds of Anakin’s inability to save the ones he love. To emphasize his failure to keep his promise to return to his mother and free her. (Despite being freed off screen, she essentially died in captivity anyway, and Anakin was not the one to free her.) To further the cohesive themes of the trilogy: death, failure, loss, the power of the dark side.

Overall response: While not as moving for me personally as Qui-gon’s death, it has a very relevant thematic purpose and furthers the story. Shmi’s death is given adequate time on screen and we are able to observe the responses and aftermath of that loss.

Padme Amidala; portrayed by Natalie Portman

Personal feelings: We make jokes about how she lost the will to live, but her funeral was beautiful and Natalie’s delivery of the line “you’re going down a path I can’t follow” feels extremely important in this story.

Mode of death: Up for debate. She has lost the will to live after giving birth to Luke and Leia in the wake of Anakin’s fall to the dark side. Some have theorized that her life force was taken (or given?) to keep Anakin alive, but this is not made explicit in the movies. She dies beside Obi-wan Kenobi, and has the time to say last words--words of hope for Anakin’s eventual redemption. Her death itself takes several minutes and is followed up with screen time for a funeral where characters acknowledge her death.

Aftermath: The gorgeous and enormous funeral, mourned as a queen and a senator and a good woman. Anakin (as Darth Vader) mourns with a devastated and poorly acted “nooooo”.

Narrative purpose: To fulfill the themes of death, loss, and failure (Anakin’s failure to keep her alive) at the hands of the dark side. To provide a character loss that mimics the loss of democracy, freedom, and goodness that has fallen to Palpatine’s control. To provide a visual and narrative parallel between the death of Anakin (through the death of his love) and the birth of Darth Vader.

Overall response: While this death was definitely poorly handled it did have narrative significance and it was arguably necessitated by having to have this trilogy line up with the original trilogy. Her short funeral was one of my favorites in the series.

Obi-wan Kenobi; portrayed by Sir Alec Guinness/Ewan McGregor

Personal feelings: I feel weird having an opinion about this one because this movie was made well before I was born, and so I didn’t feel a real connection to/nostalgia from these characters the way I did with the prequels and sequels. Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan was a huge part of my childhood, so watching A New Hope in retrospect makes this death sad for me.

Mode of death: Killed by Darth Vader/becomes one with the Force. Essentially sacrifices himself so that Luke doesn’t try to come after him.

Aftermath: Luke shouts “no!”. In a later scene, Luke further acknowledges his death--”I only wish Ben were here”. Ben is later seen as a Force ghost in Episodes V and VI, continuing to acknowledge his character’s death and ongoing influence on, importance to, and relationship with Luke.

Narrative purpose: To provide growth for Luke’s character as he grapples with losing a mentor and surrogate father figure who was also the last person (he believed) who was a link to Luke’s (supposedly) dead hero father that Luke looked up to--and setting us up for this narrative complication in VI. To demonstrate that the Jedi/good guys of the film win through self-sacrifice and not through anger, hate, or fear, which is very thematically resonant in this trilogy.

Overall response: Narratively meaningful, and the character’s death is immediately recognized. We get to see the response of the characters who he has the closest relationships with.

Yoda; portrayed by Frank Oz

(I just love The Last Jedi, okay??)

Personal feelings: It was kind of sad, in the way any person dying of old age is. It did feel more overtly spiritual than Obi-wan’s death.

Mode of death: Dies of old age, in his own home, in his own bed, with Luke beside him. His death scene lasts a few minutes and he has some last words.

Aftermath: We see Yoda again as a force ghost, which we are expecting as an audience since his body fades like Obi-wan’s did. There is sufficient closure. Luke is present for Yoda’s death and, at this point in the films, is the only character relationship Yoda has left alive--therefore this is the most significant his death can be to someone. Luke doesn’t look overly upset but this is not painted to be a sad death, as death by old age is usually more a fact of life and a nice reprieve from untimely losses.

Narrative purpose: Honestly, it’s been a long time since I watched the original trilogy so I’m kind of stretching here. I’m going to borrow from The Last Jedi and say that Yoda’s death allows Luke to grow beyond his master and stand on his own two feet as a fully autonomous agent of goodness. He no longer has the crutch of wise older men to lean on and must make his decisions on his own. Yoda’s death frees Luke to be the master of his own destiny, now knowing the truth of his parentage and no longer being guided by others to do what they think is best (kill Vader).

Overall response: One of the less impactful deaths in the series, but I do appreciate how it adds to Luke’s growth as a character and transition into Jedi Master.

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader; portrayed by James Earl Jones, Hayden Christensen, and Jake Lloyd

Personal feelings: This is the big one™ of the trilogy, and it shows. Watching Luke trying to literally drag his father to safety is raw and heartbreaking. Seeing him unmasked for his son is chilling. The funeral pyre is beautiful. This definitely made me feel the feelings.

Mode of death: Sacrificed himself to kill Palpatine. Death lasts several minutes. Dies in Luke’s arms and Luke cries as he dies.

Aftermath: Funeral pyre. Force ghost Anakin bringing peace to Luke and cementing his redemption.

Narrative purpose: Too much to list! Reinforcing that good guys sacrifice themselves to protect the people they love. Bringing balance to the Force by killing the Emperor (thanks JJ for messing that up by the way). Finding peace with Obi-wan as a force ghost. Showing that the belief that people can be saved from themselves is validated. I’m sure there’s plenty more besides but this one is so narratively rich that it would take forever to mine.

Overall response: Extreme narrative importance. Basically ties together six movies. Emotional, beautiful, resonant.

Han Solo; portrayed by Harrison Ford

Personal feelings: Ouch, ouch, ouch! This was... this was angsty. I love angsty. I cannot possibly find adequate words to describe how well done this scene and this death was. One of my top three moments of The Force Awakens.

Mode of death: Struck through the chest with a lightsaber by his son, Ben Solo (under the alias of Kylo Ren), after an attempt to save him from the dark side and bring him home. His body falls into the pit on Starkiller Base.

Aftermath: So. Much. Rey screams “no!” Finn is visibly upset, too. Chewie roars in agony and shoots Kylo Ren with his bowcaster. Leia can be seen feeling Han’s death and cannot find the strength to keep standing. Kylo/Ben looks immediately shaken by what he has done. Rey and Leia share a sad hug at the end of the film. In The Last Jedi, reactions continue. Luke is shaken by the revelation of Han’s death and spends a quiet moment in the Falcon mourning him. Kylo/Ben’s reaction continues to spiral. Snoke, in one of my favorite lines in the film, announces that “the deed split [his] spirit to the bone”. Rey grieves Han and accuses Ben of hating him. Luke warns Kylo that he will always be with him, “just like [his] father”. Han’s shadow is felt all over The Last Jedi without him being present. Even without the further reactions in The Rise of Skywalker (Rey saying Ben is haunted by him, the literal memory scene on the Death Star), the impacts of Han Solo’s death are the most significant in the entire franchise.

Narrative purpose: To advance both internal and external character conflicts. Kylo killing Han provides an external conflict between him and the heroes--particularly between him and Rey as Rey yearns for parents who love her and Ben (seemingly) rejects/kills his that do. It also provides a meaty internal conflict for Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, who is the most nuanced villain I have ever seen in film. While Han’s death doesn’t seem to serve a main theme in The Force Awakens (it is my perspective that JJ does not have cohesive overarching themes in his two entries in the saga), it does blend in pretty well with The Last Jedi’s preoccupation with killing the past. The thematic takeaway from The Last Jedi is that you can’t and shouldn’t kill the past, you should learn from it and move on--and Kylo killing Han neatly fits into this theme by showing that Kylo tried to kill his past by killing his father, and yet he was unable to move on because of it.

Overall response: Poignant. Purposeful. Well-crafted. The effects are long lasting and felt throughout the trilogy. This is not a meaningless death. Of the entire saga, this is the death that is given the most acknowledgement.

Supreme Leader Snoke; portrayed by Andy Serkis

Personal feelings: I was on the edge of my fucking seat. This is not emotionally resonant because we don’t care about Snoke but it was huge and shocking and had these enormous narrative implications moving forward.

Mode of death: Cut in half by Kylo Ren while he narrates his own death.

Aftermath: The Praetorian guards spring into action to avenge their master. In a later scene, we see Snoke’s severed legs topple to the floor. Hux is visibly shaken and angry. Kylo Ren acknowledges the death (by blaming it on Rey) and takes Snoke’s position as Supreme Leader (”the Supreme Leader is dead”, “long live the Supreme Leader”). I’m... going to ignore how The Rise of Skywalker handled Snoke. It was unnecessary to have Snoke clones from a storytelling perspective. It added nothing to the narrative, just used as a clumsy way to justify that Palpatine was really pulling the strings all along.

Narrative purpose: To deepen the perceived conflict within Kylo Ren and showing his unwillingness to kill Rey. This further complicates their relationship moving forward as we’ve established that the new head honcho powerful villain has no real desire to hurt the hero. The narrative implications of this moving forward were so rich. Pity JJ ignored them. Additionally: To show Kylo Ren symbolically surpassing Darth Vader. In Episode III Anakin claims he will overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy with Padme. He never achieves this. But Kylo Ren does (minus the Empress by his side). To deepen the theme of Kylo Ren trying to kill/bury the past in order to become stronger (and ultimately failing). To add Snoke to the list of characters in the movie who embody the theme of failure. To shake up an expected narrative trajectory and provide new pathways for future storytelling. (Again, JJ, looking at you.)

Overall response: Loved it. Loved it. Not as resonant as some of the other deaths but by far to me the most shocking.

Luke Skywalker; portrayed by Mark Hamill

Personal feelings: Okay, this is a big one. Here’s the thing. I did not grow up with the original trilogy. I never really cared for Luke (didn’t dislike him either, just ‘meh’). But this movie. This movie. I went on a journey with Luke. I saw him as fallible. As human. Making mistakes. Failing. Falling into depression. And overcoming it. I cried when Luke Skywalker died. I did not think that would happen. I did not think I would ever love Luke so much.

Mode of death: Force projects himself across the galaxy to face his nephew and save the Resistance; the effort kills him. Luke’s death takes a couple of minutes of screentime, and it is gorgeous. Hamill acts his ass off. The music, the visuals, everything combines to make this the most emotional death in Star Wars--a fitting end for its first hero.

Aftermath: Leia and Rey feel his death in the Force. They speak to each other quietly about it. They know it was peaceful. Luke, knowing he was going to die, came and saw his sister first and gave them beautiful closure and a message of hope. Just before Luke dies, he warns Kylo/Ben that he’ll always be with him. Just like his father. Luke fades into the Force and we know we will see him again as a force ghost (which we do, but JJ managed to trash even that). The boy on Canto Bight and his friends are inspired by the legend of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. He ignites hope throughout the galaxy once more.

Narrative purpose: Multiple. As above, inspiring hope throughout the galaxy once more. To serve the theme of self-sacrifice. Achieving victory without violence (pacifistic). Preventing Kylo Ren from killing more people he cares about (Rey, Leia, Luke) and thereby protecting him, at least a little, from himself. Also serves a similar purpose to Yoda’s death--with both Luke and Snoke dying, Rey and Kylo Ren are without masters, the arbiters of their own destiny (thanks again JJ for fucking that up too).

Overall response: I can’t decide if this or Han Solo’s death is more emotionally impactful to me. They are both so, so moving, and so essential to the narrative.

Leia Organa; portrayed by Carrie Fisher

Personal feelings: This is hard. I don’t think her scenes in The Rise of Skywalker worked. They were cut from The Force Awakens for a reason--and then cobbled together like some kind of Frankenstein’s Monster for this movie. As much as I love Leia and Carrie, I couldn’t feel emotion for her death because it was so wooden and artificial.

Mode of death: Uses the last of her energy to reach her son (it is unclear exactly how she is reaching him. Force projection? Did she create the Han memory? Who knows.) Even with so little to work with, they still managed to focus on her death with her lying down, her hand falling to the side--trying to give this some weight.

Aftermath: Chewie mourns. Ben and Rey both feel her death and are clearly devastated. The Resistance gather around her body in mourning. Her body fades at the same time as Ben’s (wtf, JJ) and then we see her as a force ghost with Luke (but not Ben because fuck him apparently). 

Narrative purpose: To bring her son back to the light, something that has been a central struggle of this trilogy. Sacrificing yourself to save that which you love.

Overall response: It has a purpose, but I can’t help but think it wouldn’t have gone this way if Carrie hadn’t died. It doesn’t seem as organic as the deaths of Han and Luke.

NB: I’m skipping Palpatine because his death was literally nothing else than “defeat the big bad”. It wasn’t even fulfilling a prophecy, it had no significant narrative weight for Rey, it was a nothing burger.

Ben Solo/Kylo Ren; portrayed by Adam Driver

Personal feelings: Twofold. In the cinema, I felt nothing. Nothing. I actually laughed in surprise. Like, “what was that”? The next day, at home, I cried. I don’t think I cried because he died. I was open to that possibility. I cried because I was so, so angry at how poorly his arc and death was handled. Like he was a footnote in his own fucking story. I think him living was a much more interesting story, narratively and thematically, but I wasn’t necessarily opposed to his death if it was done well. And it wasn’t.

Mode of death: Uses the last of his life energy to resurrect Rey. Falls over. (Plop, there he goes.) Fades into the force.

Aftermath: Like, none? Rey looks kind of surprised and blinks for a couple of seconds. No words are exchanged. He just tips over and dies. Cool.

Narrative purpose (or failure thereof): I am fucking reaching here because all of the previously established trajectories and themes are dashed by this ending. We could argue that this is a self-sacrifice to save what you love theme point. Which is fine, but like, no one mourns. He doesn’t become a Force Ghost. No one acknowledges his death. Ben fading into the Force is a metaphor for him fading from people’s minds. It’s like he doesn’t even exist in the context of the story anymore. Which is insanely baffling because all three of the original trilogy heroes sacrificed their lives, at least in part, to save Ben Solo. So that he could in turn save Rey? So he’s just another cog in the machine? This was always about Rey and never about the love Han and Leia had for their son, or that Luke had for his nephew? If you think about it, the only other ‘main’ characters to die during the course of their trilogy were Qui-gon and Padme. And both of those characters had funerals, and people mourning, and huge narrative implications. The death of Ben Solo reads like the death of a minor character. It serves one very narrow and already over-represented theme. The death of all of the rest of the Skywalkers had huge emotional ramifications for the other characters in the films. With Ben Solo, the Skywalker legacy fades as well, as if JJ is telling us that this saga was not about this family at all, but their whole story existed only for the point of saving Palpatine’s granddaughter. How fucked up is that?

Overall response: Narratively, this just doesn’t make sense. It’s lazy and not impactful. When a character dies in films, you want the audience to feel something, so you show other characters reacting to it. Are they sad? Then we should feel sad too! Are they elated? We should be celebrating! No one reacts to Ben’s death, so we’re not sure how we’re supposed to feel, either. The people who are devastated by this death are the ones who love the character itself and are upset that he got treated this way--the death itself was hollow and emotionless.

So, there you have it. Ben Solo was shafted. Death is extremely prevalent in these movies, and yet, being the only new Skywalker of the sequels and half the protagonist (thank you Rian), Ben Solo has arguably the least emotional or narratively impactful death in the franchise.

Rian Johnson would never do this to Ben Solo.

[stanakin96]

I Shall Believe - QuiObi

Obi-Wan keeps seeing Qui-Gon's ghost, and it reminds him of their life together - the glimmering, shining memories. From the beginning, to the end.

kind of angsty so not for the lighthearted

Jedi did not grieve.

They were permitted time by the council, R&R they called it. If a master or a padawan died they were provided two weeks to rest their mind and then it was back to work, onto the next mission. Obi-Wan ran his hand through his hair, stopping at the place where his padawan braid once sat. He’d cut it himself, alone, in the fresher once shared by him and Qui-Gon. He gripped the sides of the sink to keep himself standing upright, doing his best to stop the shaking and compose himself.

Those few moments were all the R&R he’d receive, all the grief he was permitted.

There was nobody he could present his braid to, nobody to steady his tremoring shoulders. And he wouldn’t dare let Anakin see him like this – after all – the boy had just left his mother, everything he knew. He couldn’t allow Qui-Gon’s death to hinder him as a master. Suddenly, he felt a warm, soft air brush by his ears and neck. He jerked his head up and looked in the mirror, meeting Qui-Gon Jinn’s gaze in the corner. Clear as day, unwounded and hair brushed.

“Master!” Obi-Wan called out as he turned around.

But there was nothing there.

Obi-Wan threw the long, beaded braid into the bin next to him, watching as it sank away with the rest of the discarded things.

-

It wasn’t long before Anakin picked up on his training – he was smart, athletic and gleamed in the force more than any jedi Obi-Wan had ever met. For a youngling of his age he far surpassed his peers, which provided Obi-Wan with a sufficient challenge as his master. A few months or so into his training, Obi-Wan only thought of Qui-Gon once or twice a day, doing his best to focus all his attentions onto his padawan.

When Obi-Wan sensed a training bond between them, likely accelerated by their experience on Tatooine, he remembered his bond with Qui-Gon.

“Why do we mediate so much?” Anakin asked, opening his right eye and looking at Obi-Wan.

“It connects us to the force – shut your eyes,” Obi-Wan said.

But he could still feel Anakin’s confusion, his palpable yearn to understand.

“You know, I hated meditating when I was your age,” Obi-Wan said.

“Liar-” Anakin responded, Obi-Wan thought he even saw a smile. “Why do you do it so much now, then?”

“My master forced me to do it once every couple hours, you’re lucky I don’t make you do that,” Obi-Wan replied.

He watched as Anakin brought his hand to his chin in contemplation, a habit he’d obviously picked up from Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan felt his chest tighten – it was a practice he’d observed and stolen from Qui-Gon over the years.

“I dunno, my master makes me do it a lot too,” Anakin replied, shutting his eyes and bringing his hands back to his folded knees. It was the first time Obi-Wan laughed in months.

Obi-Wan jerked out of his mediation at a feeling of shock that his padawan sent shooting through their bond. He could practically feel the force beating around them, swirling and building up in the small room.

“Is everything alright?” Obi-Wan said, deciding that mediation practice was done for the day.

“Did you see him?” Anakin asked, his voice small.

Obi-Wan didn’t need to ask who he was referring to – because there he was. In the corner of the room, glowing and illuminated in the force. Qui-Gon, in the robes Obi-Wan had buried him in, with his eyes fixed on him and his arms outstretched, as though to say something. Obi-Wan blinked and he was gone – before Obi-Wan could reach back, before he got a good look at him. He turned back to Anakin.

“I told you mediation was important,” Obi-Wan replied, though he could barely breathe.

He listened for the sound of Anakin’s laughter to focus intently on the things that lived and breathed. For he feared that if he didn’t, he’d go chasing after what no longer existed.

-

“Do you remember Queen Fanry?” Qui-Gon asked.

“Of Pijal?” Said Obi-Wan, standing up off the sofa and meeting Qui-Gon in the kitchen. Rarely was he allowed downtime in Qui-Gon’s quarters, and it felt odd to sit. “How could I forget?”

Their mission to Pijal had been the first one Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had truly bonded on, before then all they did was disagree. Right before they’d left for the planet, Qui-Gon had been offered a seat on the council, leaving Obi-Wan to assume he would once again be abandoned. However, at the end of the week, Qui-Gon rejected the seat – in the name of learning more about the force, of connecting to its higher powers. Years had passed since the mission, and Obi-Wan was no longer seventeen – but a man of twenty-one.

“She’s invited us back for a celebration of sorts, and the council has given us permission to attend,” Qui-Gon said, averting Obi-Wan’s eyesight.

“Let me make sure I’m hearing this correctly, master,” Obi-Wan started. “You got permission from the jedi council for the two of us to go on an elective trip to a foreign planet, for a celebration?”

“Don’t act snide, padawan,” Qui-Gon replied.

“I’m not snide, I just didn’t know you were so sentimental,” Obi-Wan said, pressing into Qui-Gon’s space and smiling, Qui-Gon focused on his breathing.

“I’m only sentimental about a few things,” Qui-Gon replied.

One thing.

“Hopefully one of those are dress robes, master,” Obi-Wan said, patting Qui-Gon on the shoulder, who all but flinched at the touch.

He turned to face the door as Obi-Wan left to his own quarters, they’d stopped sharing a couple years ago. Qui-Gon reached his hand up to where Obi-Wan had touched him, and let his fingers linger there for a few moments while he watched his padawan leave. After all – how was Obi-Wan to know that Qui-Gon watched his every move?

How his feet struck the ground, how he walked, how he breathed. In all his life, Qui-Gon never thought that he would be the type of master to become so taken with his padawan, and yet, here he was. As he was in most things – Obi-Wan was the exception.

“Did you want to dance, master?” Obi-Wan asked, holding his hand outward in the middle of the Pijali ballroom, “it would be rude not to.”

Qui-Gon stared at him for a moment, looking him up and down. Obi-Wan was nothing if not beautiful, and Qui-Gon felt that a shining glimmer of light followed him everywhere he went. But there was something about tonight that was different. Obi-Wan seemed older, somehow more beautiful, if that was even possible. Qui-Gon silently took his hand as a slow, orchestral song filled the pillared halls.

“You can touch me, you know. I’m smaller than you but you won’t break me” Obi-Wan joked, Qui-Gon forced himself to laugh – as though his padawan was not in complete control of the situation.

He made his way in front of Obi-Wan and did his best to remain composed. Even though Obi-Wan slowly ran his hands up his chest and to his shoulder, even though Qui-Gon had rested his hand on the small of his back.

“Do you know why I rejected the council seat? After Pijal?” Qui-Gon asked, pushing his large hand over Obi-Wan’s clothes, the tough pads of his fingers resting on his waist.

“The force – you wished to learn more about it and the council would be a distraction -” Obi-Wan quickly replied, balancing his own hands on Qui-Gon’s shoulders.

“For you, padawan. Yes, I wished to learn more about the force, but I couldn’t bear to leave you,” Qui-Gon said, finally.

“I don’t believe you,” Obi-Wan swiftly replied, digging his fingers into Qui-Gon’s robe.

“It’s true,” Qui-Gon started, “you can ask Mace, I’m sure he sensed that my explanation was less than genuine.”

Suddenly, Qui-Gon felt Obi-Wan’s hand grip tight to his. Obi-Wan led him out of the ballroom, quickly and without turning back. Qui-Gon felt his heart sink as he felt panic surge through his bond with Obi-Wan, had he said something wrong?

“Do you mean what you say?” Obi-Wan asked once he led Qui-Gon out into an empty corridor, where only a few guards stood watch. “That you can’t bear to be without me?”

“Of course, padawan, I’m only sorry that I didn’t make it obvious sooner,” Qui-Gon said.

“Call me Obi-Wan,” he said, stepping close once more, “I’m hardly a boy anymore.”

“Obi-Wan, I-” Qui-Gon started, stopping in the middle of his sentence in exasperation. Obi-Wan had backed himself into a corner, and his own large body towered over his apprentice’s. Qui-Gon balanced a hand on the wall behind Obi-Wan’s head.

I long for you, I want you.

“Kiss me, master,” Obi-Wan asked, his voice almost at a whisper as he hooked his hands around Qui-Gon’s neck.

“Call me Qui-Gon,” he asked, pressing his fingers to Obi-Wan’s chin and bottom lip, feeling how soft he was there, unable to believe that he wasn’t dreaming.

“Kiss me, Qui-Gon-” Obi-Wan asked, though he could barely finish his request before Qui-Gon had pressed his lips against his and melded their bodies together.

Never before had Qui-Gon felt the force as strong as he did in that moment, with Obi-Wan pawing at his chest and pushing into him, the two of them breathing as one. Qui-Gon allowed his hand to move to Obi-Wan’s hair, tugging lightly at his padawan braid, when he heard a light moan pepper off Obi-Wan’s mouth and into his. Qui-Gon pressed harder, deeper into his lips, before lifting Obi-Wan up from his feet and onto his hips, where his padawan knew instinctively what to do, straddling his legs around his waist.

Qui-Gon let the force guide him back to his private quarters at the Pijali palace, knowing that if he separated himself from Obi-Wan for even one moment, he’d fall to his knees for him– happy to submit to even an ounce of his light.

-

Obi-Wan woke in a frenzy, his hair and skin slick with sweat. He pressed his hand to his neck to feel his pulse, how it rapidly beat against him – as though his will to live was a sign of defiance. He fell back onto the soaked pillow of his bed, running his hands over his face and sighing. Obi-Wan hoped that Anakin couldn’t feel his distress through their bond, and that he hadn’t woken his padawan with what felt like the never-ending nightmare.

It always went the same – he was on Tatooine.

He faced a mysterious Sith lord who had been chasing him and Qui-Gon. And he was forced to watch, over and over again, as he pierced Qui-Gon through the gut. He could feel the scream build up in his throat, chasing down the terrible feeling of his bond to Qui-Gon being severed in half. The pain of it burned Obi-Wan, singed him to a crisp, followed him no matter where he ran.

He pushed away hot, drying tears from his face when he felt a presence at the end of his bed. Obi-Wan shot up – knowing that strong, whimsical force signature anywhere.

“Qui-Gon?” Obi-Wan asked, his voice cracking as he faced his old master, sitting on top of his knees at the foot of the bed they once shared.

“Dear one,” Qui-Gon started, his face and body luminous, as though he was there but not really, “I don’t have much time.”

Obi-Wan reached his hand forward to where Qui-Gon’s chest was, but his hand went straight through the figment of him. He felt his heart seize and tense as fresh tears built in his eyes.

“I can’t even touch you,” Obi-Wan said, “it’s not fair.”

“Obi-Wan, I only have a few moments,” Qui-Gon pushed.

“Then leave me!” Obi-Wan shouted, “do not curse me to this world where I can see you but not touch you.”

Without another moment, Qui-Gon was gone. But on Obi-Wan’s side table was a note, scribbled in Qui-Gon’s illegible handwriting -

– believe.

-

Qui-Gon dragged his fingers over Obi-Wan’s bare shoulder, grazing lightly into the crook that met his neck. He pressed a light kiss to that space, breathing in the scent of Obi-Wan and wishing he could stay there all night.

“Mmm, sleep, master,” Obi-Wan whispered.

“I can’t sleep,” Qui-Gon replied, tracing a circle with his finger at the nape of Obi-Wan’s neck, “too distracted, padawan.”

“What’re you thinking about?” Obi-Wan sleepily asked.

Qui-Gon sighed, debating whether or not to admit to Obi-Wan the whole truth of what was on his mind. He’d had a vision, a feeling, recently. That he should prepare Obi-Wan for a world where they were separated, even if it was truly by the thin veil of the living and the dead. It was just a feeling – a nudge from the force – but Qui-Gon had listened to less.

“I have half a mind to believe that if I died, my soul would return to the world just to be near you, padawan” Qui-Gon said, feeling Obi-Wan immediately jerk awake from his half-sleep.

“Why would you say that?” Obi-Wan said.

“Dear one,” Qui-Gon said, reaching out his hand and softly cupping Obi-Wan’s face, “don’t panic.”

Obi-Wan quickly grabbed onto Qui-Gon’s hand and brought it to his chest, digging his fingers deep into the flesh of his skin.

“What am I supposed to do, then?” Obi-Wan asked, exasperated and upset.

“Promise that if the day passes where I am gone, you shall look for me,” Qui-Gon brought Obi-Wan’s fist to his lips, “that you shall believe.”

Qui-Gon ran his fingers up Obi-Wan’s thighs as his padawan crawled into his lap, wrapping his legs around his waist. Obi-Wan pressed his lips against Qui-Gon’s, slowly, so that when he deepened the kiss it was all the better. Obi-Wan pulled away for just a moment, leaving Qui-Gon with a shimmer of his taste.

“I shall believe,” Obi-Wan said, believing every word.

-

There is an oasis at the center of Tatooine, as there would be for any desert.

And in it is a body of water, though only locals confirm its existence. Obi-Wan would have doubted himself had he not seen it personally, and had Anakin not told him about it countless times.

It was the only place he could think of going when he’d finally grown tired of the weight of it all, the pain of universe. Anakin was gone – replaced by a black cloak and mask – as though Obi-Wan had not lost enough. Where there was once powerful, inexplicable beauty was nothing. Losing his padawan wasn’t unlike losing his master, the well of grief buried a hole in Obi-Wan that could never be filled.

Obi-Wan stepped off his ship, slowly, he was older – now. His body moved slower. He’d used the remainder of his life force chasing around a blond-haired child who reminded him of the best parts of Anakin – his shimmering eyes, his boyish hope. Obi-Wan felt only light and warmth at the thought of Luke.

The old jedi master waded into the water, watching as his cloak and robes rose to the surface. He ran his hands over the clear lake, pressing his hands into the thin, enveloping nature of it as he sank deeper. The water was up to Obi-Wan’s chest when he felt it – the force – wrapping and circling around him in a never-ending spiral.

He looked ahead of him, reaching out his wrinkled hands and feeling a warm, strong grasp wrap around his fingers. With streaks of grey painting his long, soft hair and clean, tan robes – he hardly looked any different. It was visceral, it was magical and unlike anything else in the world. Obi-Wan laughed.

It was Qui-Gon.

reblog/like if you liked it :) ty for reading

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32346730

[tessiete]

This was for the prompt from @treescape who asked what would happen if Obi-Wan had taken Korkie back with him from Mandalore after Satine's death. I said, "Well, at the very least it would force him and Anakin to talk to each other, and maybe stop the whole Fall of the Republic from happening."

And she said, "They won't talk."

And I said, "I'LL SHOW YOU!"

But then, she was right.

I tried. THE PUNISHMENT OF SILENCE

She throws him on a ship, and says “This one’s yours,” and they’re already away by the time he comprehends she meant the pilot on board with him. 

He’s pale to the point of imagination, and trembling - a reflection of how Obi-Wan imagines he himself must look, bloodless and haunted. His eyes seem hollowed out from the shadows between stars, his hair lank and lifeless, his mouth a jagged streak of blood cut straight across his face as though his jaw has been neatly bisected, his tongue cut out, and silence fills the space between them.

But he steps away from the controls at Obi-Wan’s approach.

He says nothing to the boy as he staggers to the pilot’s seat, and straps himself in. He hears the sounds of violent retching being pulled, and pulled, and then replaced with shattered breathing, and he spares him a glance to shout, “Do you know how to man the cannons on this ship?”

The boy lifts his head. His hair has tumbled out of its militant lines to hang over his eyes like some wild thing hunted. 

“The cannons,” Obi-Wan repeats. “Can you use them?”

The boy nods.

“Then do so,” Obi-Wan says.

He turns his attention back to the front. They are approaching the edge of the atmosphere, but are still trailing the most dedicated of their enemy’s pilots behind them. He feints left, then swings back to the right, trying to shake their aim as his companion slides into the gunner’s seat, and places his hands on the controls.

A strange look falls over his face then - something cool, and placid - and Obi-Wan too feels himself steady. He ceases to think of the sweat trickling down his brow, or the ache between his shoulders, or the pounding of his heart. Instead, he is flying. They are buoyed by the wind, then freed of atmospheric friction, and at last, with a contemptuous spit of the cannons, loosed from their pursuers and the strangling grip of Mandalore.

Without thought, Obi-Wan primes the hyperdrive, sets a course for Coruscant, and presses them into the stars. The ship resists for a moment, unwilling to let go of the planet, but soon gives in, and they are thrown into the cosmic whirlpool of hyperspace where time and place fall silent. 

And Obi-Wan can think.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“It’s Korkie. I’m Korkie,” the boy gasps, his hands falling away from the console and his calm with it. “Kiorkicek Kryze. My mother - my aunt…”

He shakes his head, his mouth still open but his voice has broken into absence.

“Your mother?” Obi-Wan says. “Bo-Katan? She wanted you off the planet -”

But Korkie shakes his head harder. He swallows. He swallows again, still gaping. 

“My mother - she died. I saw - I tried to save her. I tried to help - she said you’d help her.”

He feels a creeping numbness spreading from his joints, like muscles stiffening in the wake of a blaster’s stun.

“Satine,” he says, knowing and yet unsure. “Satine is your mother.”

“Yes,” Korkie says. “We were going to leave together. She said - we’d leave together when you came.”

“Your father -?”

“No.” It falls from him like a single tear, stifled before the onslaught of grief.

This one’s yours, she’d said.

“No,” whispers Obi-Wan in kind.

And then Korkie is crying, desperate, greedy torrents of grief that stutter out between his teeth like laughter. He presses a hand to his mouth, and wraps an arm about his middle to barricade the doors, but they are flung open, and the vacuum of his heart is filled by loud, rushing sobs. 

Obi-Wan barely hears him, caught instead listening to the voices of the past. Bo-Katan’s. Satine’s. Qui-Gon’s. He unbuckles the straps from his waist, and his shoulders, and slips from his seat to stand. 

“I...I need to change,” he says. “You should get some rest. We’ll hit planetfall in about six hours.”

This ship is unfamiliar, but equally unimaginative in its design, and so he stumbles to the fresher without effort. The room is warm, but there is no comfort in sonics the way there is in a shower. There is no rhythm of water beating out its rage upon your skin, at first soothing, then numb, then painful in its insistence. There is no cleansing fall of rain, no slick of wet across your skin, no satisfying whirlpool of dirt and grit spinning out of sight down the drain. Instead, the detritus of battle falls from your body, settling like the dust of memory upon the floor.

He steps out of the fresher, and feels no different.

The cockpit is abandoned when he returns, and the galley too, and he thinks perhaps, somehow, he is alone again in space.

He presses his hand against the door to the officer’s quarters, and it slides open with a gust of wind. Inside, curled atop the coarse coverlet of an unforgiving bunk, Korkie Kryze lies asleep. His hands are tucked beneath his arms, and his knees drawn up as if he’s cold, but he does not shiver. He barely breathes. In his stillness, Obi-Wan studies him.

There is familiarity in his expression, his brow furrowed, plagued by worry even in dreams, his hair swept across his forehead. The slope of his nose. The bow of his lips, though the bottom one is red and raw as though he habitually frets at it. There is a deep, purple bloom around the orbit of his left eye, and the cracked seal of broken skin like the stain of a fist upon his cheek. Obi-Wan touches his own cheek, as though the blow might be reflected there as well, but it is smooth. His own injuries lie elsewhere.

For a moment, he debates waking the boy, debates ordering him to wash and dress, but he can’t think of seeing her again, or himself, or whichever ghost might be looking back at him from behind those eyes. So instead, he unfolds the spare blanket at the end of the bed, provided to compensate for the chill of deep space, and lays it gently atop the sleeping form.

He spends the rest of the trip in the cockpit staring out at the stars, and thinking of absolutely nothing at all.

They land on Coruscant in the middle of a beautiful day, and Anakin is there to meet him. 

“Another Council sanctioned secret?” he spits, as Obi-Wan stumbles down the ramp. “Another noble cause? What have you done with my ship?”

“I’m sorry,” says Obi-Wan, as Ahsoka shoulders her master aside to wrap Obi-Wan in a fierce embrace.

“We were worried,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

She pulls away, or he does, and her eyes catch on movement behind him.

“Korkie?” Her voice rises with surprise.

The boy still wears the grey uniform of his insurgency, though it is bloodied and torn, and he hangs over himself with his arms clasped around his middle as though to keep from spilling across the docks. He looks up at Ahsoka’s call, and blinks in the light of the day.

She leaves Obi-Wan, and he falters as she goes, moving to catch Korkie as he falls apart in her arms.

“You went to Mandalore?” Anakin asks, his voice threaded with outrage at this hypocrisy.

“I had to,” Obi-Wan says. “I had to.”

“Where’s Satine?” demands Ahsoka, from a distance. “Where’s his aunt?”

“Dead.”

Ahsoka is the first to recover.

“We should take him to the Halls, master,” she says, appealing to an Anakin still frozen in scrutinizing his own master. “I think his arm is broken, and his eye -” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, and Obi-Wan feels the focus levelled upon him strain and snap like an elastroband. “Let’s do that.”

They move slowly, up the steps, through the hangar, and past the minor customs and hazard authorities, and through the grand hallways of the Temple. Ahoska keeps her arm around Korkie’s waist, and lets him lean upon her, limping with exhaustion. Beside him, Obi-Wan can feel Anakin hovering close, but not touching, as though one or both of them might shatter with contact. He doesn’t reach out, and he is unaware of anything else until they come to the Halls of Healing and are ushered inside.

Then it is all confusion.

Korkie is pulled away from Ahsoka with a small cry as his arm is jostled, and probing fingers are pressed to his cheek. He grips Ahsoka’s hand in his own, and holds on as she tells the healers the little bit she has managed to glean since their arrival. The healers, unsatisfied, ask question after question about Mandalore, about his injuries, about the time since their occurence. They ask what hurts, and where, and how they happened. They ask if this was a fist, or a stick, or the back of a blade. They ask if he fell, or was pushed. They ask if there’s anything else, anything more, anything he’s hiding from them.

And Bant is there, too.

He can tell by the faint scent of deep sea salt, and the coolness of her hands upon his skin as she turns his face from the chaos of Korkie’s arrival to focus on her, and her alone.

“What about you?” she asks. “Where are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt,” he mutters, the words habitual though no sound comes to fill them with weight.

She shines a light in his eyes, and he winces, turning away.

“A concussion,” she says. “At least. And what else?”

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m fine. What about -?”

“He’s being taken care of,” she replies. “Now, let us do the same for you.”

The little light goes back in her pocket, and she takes him by the hand like a child. He goes with her, willingly, casting only one look back to find Anakin, watching him as always, as he is led away.

__

The room she takes him to is small, and white, and the door shuts behind her keeping back the world with it. She guides him to sit upon a little bed that reminds him of the one he once had in Qui-Gon’s quarters, but when she puts her hands on his shoulders to lay him flat, he gasps, and resists.

“No,” he says. “No, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she says, her voice calm. “That’s okay, you don’t have to lie down. Just look at me, okay? And we’re going to figure this out. Yes?”

He nods. He trusts Bant. “Yes.”

“Now, we know about the concussion. Can you tell me if you were hit, or struck by anything?”

“I fell out of a ship,” he says, and to her credit, Bant doesn’t even pause between this question and the next.

“Were you alone?”

“No. I was with Satine. We were shot down. The ship fell, and we had to evacuate.”

The way he says it, the way he looks in this moment...Bant remembers how it was when he first came home from Mandalore, and she pulls a stool close to sit as near him as possible.

“Where is Satine now?”

He inhales sharply, the breath catching on his teeth, and tears still trapped deep in his chest.

“Do you know, I think I’m rather tired? I’d like to return to my quarters, now.”

“Obi-Wan -”

“I’d like to return to my room.”

“I know,” says Bant, taking his hand in hers. “I’m just going to give you a quick check over to make sure you’re not bleeding out anywhere, right? We know that’s very much a possibility with you, don’t we?” She smiles, trying to nudge him into something safe and familiar.

Very briefly, he smiles back, and relents. “Alright.”

“So,” she continues, pulling a holochart from a nearby drawer. “When you fell out of the ship, how did you land?”

“Badly.”

“Like how?”

“I hit my shoulder. I rolled. I tried to protect -”

But Bant cuts him off before he is strangled by memory.

“Okay, your shoulder, your ribs. How do your hips feel?”

“Fine,” he says. “I could walk after. I could run.”

“Your arms?”

“I don’t know.”

She sets her chart and stylus aside. “Can I see?” she asks.

He shrugs, but makes no objection when she reaches for the thick layer of a Mandalorian flight shirt that shrouds his torso. She lifts from the hem, and pulls the fabric upwards. His arms ache as they are drawn above his shoulders, and the high neck of the collar squeezes some colour back into his cheeks. He flinches in the chill of the room, and Bant apologises, pulling a pale green blanket across his back.

She frowns as she examines the markings upon his skin.

“Obi-Wan, that must’ve been some fall.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

She doesn’t acknowledge this as she prods at him with impossibly soft, webbed fingers, frowning and tutting at each wince and grimace she elicits from him. 

“You’ve got some broken ribs,” she announces. “Some deep bruising. Let me see your hands.”

He gives her his left, and then his right when the first passes inspection. The second is not so lucky.

“This your saber hand?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve two broken fingers here,” she says. “Do you remember that happening?”

“No.”

“And bruising. Like a boot. Did someone step on your hand?”

“I don’t know.”

She taps the end of each, and he tries not to cry out, suddenly aware of the pain flaring there.

“The good news is, you’ve not lost any feeling,” she says. “The bad news is, you’re going to need a dip. I’m so sorry, Obi-Wan.”

“I don’t want bacta.”

“I know, but that concussion alone needs more sustained treatment if you don’t want to end up with some significant issues. And your hand…”

“I’m fine,” he says, pulling his hand away to hide it in the folds of the blanket. “You said I could go back to my rooms.”

“You know I didn’t,” she says. She knows him. She knows this dance, even if the steps are heavier and more fatigued than normal. She does not rise to his bait. She waits him out.

At last, his shoulders heave and droop, and he gives in. 

“Where’s Anakin?” he asks.

“Probably outside, half hysterical with worry by now,” she says.

“He hates me.”

“He doesn’t.”

“Where’s Korkie?”

“Who’s that?”

“The boy who came with me. He’s Satine’s - he’s Satine’s…”

She hesitates, not wanting to guess, but by his struggle she thinks the answer can only be one thing.

“Her son?”

He nods, a wordless gasp of distress breaking free of him. She wants to lean forward, to embrace him, but he’s still so distant that she knows he would not let her. So instead, Bant puts her hand upon his head, and strokes his hair over and over again from his crown to the nape of his neck.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t know she’d found someone else.”

But that’s not it. He shakes his head vehemently, as he clutches the blanket closer, and grits out a reply which Bant could not have anticipated no matter how many years of friendship lay between them.

“She didn’t,” he says. “He’s mine.”

And with that confession tumbling free, so too, comes grief, like huge rolling waves pulling him under, and spinning him upwards until he is disoriented and gasping for air. She doesn’t wait, now, instead reaching out to gather him in her arms, giving him something to hold onto, as the tides of anguish rise and rise, and eventually fall, and him with them, into a deep, exhausted sleep.

She eases him back onto the pallet, pulling the cover high, and dims the lights. 

In Admittance, she inputs her data into the medcomp, and makes a recommendation for immediate bacta immersion. Her face is somber, and stoic, showing nothing of what she feels or thinks of this turn of events. She doesn’t quite know, herself, in any case.

Anakin is waiting, his elbows braced upon his knees, one leg bouncing, standing out like a bruise against the ceramplast white of the hall.

“Where’s Obi-Wan?” he demands, rising to meet her as soon as she steps away from the monitor.

“Asleep,” she says. “We’re waiting on a dip. Where’s Korkie?”

“Ahsoka’s with him,” he says. “Did he tell you about the Duchess?”

“He did.”

Anakin nods. She watches as his jaw clenches, and the muscles there leap as he chews up the marrow of his thoughts.

“Kriffing idiot,” he spits. “I would have gone with him, if he’d asked.”

“Does he know that?”

“He should,” Anakin insists. “But he doesn’t trust me.”

“He doesn’t want to hurt you.”

“Well, great job,” Anakin says, a bark of laughter punctuating his words. It rings through the vaulted ceilings of the hall, a clarion of upset. “Now he’s hurt, and his girlfriend is dead.”

“Anakin!”

But Anakin’s outrage is mounting, and gathering like an Alderaanian storm falling off the mountains.

“Oh, don’t defend him,” he says. “Don’t pretend this isn’t on him, because it is. Just like the Hardeen thing. It was his choice to go alone. It was his choice to turn his back on us. It was his choice to leave me behind. I don’t feel sorry for him, Master Eerin. I don’t. He’s done this himself.”

Bant stares at him. She says nothing. She only waits until the impact of his words rebound from the blank slate of her response and fall back on him. She waits for him to hear himself, and she knows he does when his mechanical hand forms a fist, and his shoulders turn him acutely away from her gaze. Anakin sighs, his voice turning soft, his words clipped short.

“Just comm me when he’s out of bacta,” he says. He stalks out of the Halls without a backward glance.

Bant sighs, her guard dropping just in time for her to hear the soft click of another door closing from behind her. She turns with an admonition on her lips. If Obi-Wan has roused himself to chase after his padawan, he’ll have no help from her.

But instead, it is Anakin’s padawan she meets.

“Master Eerin?” she calls, slipping out of the room behind her. “Did Anakin talk to you about Obi-Wan?”

Bant frowns, then turns a rueful eye on Ahsoka, a smile twisting at her lips.

“In a manner of speaking,” she says.

“Oh,” says Ahsoka. “He’s still mad about the Rako Hardeen incident.”

“So I gathered,” says Bant. She flicks through pages of data on her holochart, idly reminding herself of the litany of abuse Obi-Wan had come to her with following that particular debacle so recently ago. 

Ahsoka watches her intently, her head cocked. She runs her hands nervously over a lekku before she speaks again. “Aren’t you still mad?” she asks.

“No,” says Bant, looking at her again, and seeing only youth where the Republic sees a Commander. 

“Why not?”

“A healer learns only to be grateful when someone comes back from death,” she says. “It doesn’t happen often enough to grow bitter for it.”

Ahsoka nods, and frowns again. It is clear that there is more she’d say, and more she’s considered in the weeks following Obi-Wan’s undercover mission. Things that she cannot say to her master, who is still angry, or to Obi-Wan who is still too lost to guide anyone with authority. So Bant sets her chart aside, and sits against the wall, gesturing for Ahsoka to join her.

“I wish they’d talk,” she says, as she drops into the seat next to Bant. “I mean, they do talk. We had that whole mission to Onderon, and everything was fine. I mean, mostly. But then...why wouldn’t Master Obi-Wan have come to us?”

“I don’t know, Ahsoka,” says Bant. “But I do know it was never meant as a slight against you. Whatever is between Obi-Wan and your master has nothing to do with how Obi-Wan feels about you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve known Obi-Wan since the creche, and I can tell you: he’s always been like this.”

Ahsoka is silent for a moment, considering this, but before her contemplation can slide into brooding, Bant intervenes, tapping her forearm with the stylus to draw her back to the present.

“What about that young man you carried in here? Korkie, was it?”

“Yeah,” she says. “He’s the Duchess’ nephew. We worked together the last time I was on Mandalore. The Prime Minister was establishing a black market, and he helped catch him.”

“By yourselves?” she asks, caught somewhere between surprise and a familiar chagrin.

“Well, with friends,” she says. “And his Aunt.”

“Sounds like a good kid,” says Bant, then laughs at Ahsoka’s grimace of distaste. “Tell me about him.”

“Oh, I don’t know him that well,” she replies. “He was really interested in the Jedi when we met, though. Kept asking about the Temple, and lightsabers, and Jedi philosophy. He’d mentioned something about Master Seva once, but I don’t remember enough about the Old Age philosophers to know what he meant.”

“I suppose philosophy and literature classes have somewhat fallen by the wayside in the past couple years,” Bant says. 

“I guess,” says Ahsoka. “But I don’t think I’d have time to write essays while in the middle of a dogfight, you know?”

“Tell me,” she says, pushing just a little further than is probably wise. “Did Korkie ever mention anything about his father?”

“No,” says Ahsoka. “Just that the Duchess was like a mother to him. That she raised him, and he grew up mostly in the palace. I assume he’s an orphan. Maybe he doesn’t remember. Or maybe it’s too painful to talk about. I didn’t ask.”

“No, no,” Bant assures her, patting her hand fondly. “Of course not. Do you think he’d mind if I went in to visit him?”

“Korkie? He was asleep when I left.”

“That’s for the best. I just want to give him a quick check up. Make sure nothing was missed. You’d better go after your master - make sure he doesn’t blow up something we can’t replace.”

Ahsoka smiles at that, and springs to her feet eager to be directed towards some useful task.

“You mean himself,” she says. “Anything else he could probably fix.”

“Or improve.”

“Or that!” Ahsoka agrees, laughing now. She gives Bant a quick bow, then exits the hall with a quick, and sturdy step while Bant slips silently into the room at her back.

It’s quiet inside, the air is warm, and it may as well be the same room she’d vacated earlier for all the similarity of the figure on the bed. He looks like Obi-Wan - the way she remembers him. He looks like he did in those in-between years of childhood and adolescence. His hair follows the same line, his brow furrows the same way, and in the soft light she takes a small sample of his blood and confirms that which she already knew for sure.

__

Anakin is waiting for him when he wakes. He sits at his bedside, and watches as he rises up through the fathoms of sleep, buoyed to the surface by piercing shafts of light, like a diver on Mon Cala. Anakin can feel his muscles twitch as consciousness returns in the dry warmth of the palm pressed flush against his own.

“What time is it?” Obi-Wan asks, blinking him into focus.

“It’s late,” he replies.

Obi-Wan relaxes, his head rolling back to settle against his pillow. “You should go to bed,” he says, and Anakin huffs with laughter.

“We’re way beyond that, old man.”

“Are you okay?” he asks, and that’s just so typical that Anakin smirks.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“Good.”

“Are you?”

The pleasant warmth of drowsiness is stripped away in his next breath, and Anakin can feel the  air turn so cold that it raises gooseflesh across his arms, and freezes against Obi-Wan’s lips. His fingers flex against the sheets, and Anakin’s hand tightens in response, keeping him there when he’d rather turn away.

“Don’t -” he warns, but Anakin doesn’t listen. He never does.

“You were in bacta for three days,” he says. “You could have died. All because you couldn’t bear to come to me first. To ask me. To trust me.”

“I do trust you, Anakin.”

“Don’t lie to me, too,” he says. 

“It’s the truth,” he swears. “I couldn’t - The Council -”

“I don’t care what the Council said,” Anakin protests. “I would have come for you, master.”

Obi-Wan blinks rapidly up at the lights overhead. Anakin can feel as he grasps clumsily at the insubstantial wisps of the Force, cloudy and distant with sedation, and grips his hand more firmly still. He, at least, is solid.

“What of Korkie?” Obi-Wan asks, at last.

Anakin slides his hand free.

“The kid? He’s fine. A little beat up, but nothing a couple of bacta patches and some bone knitters couldn’t fix. Ahsoka’s with him now.”

“Good,” says Obi-Wan, his breaths coming more and more easily. “That’s good.”

Anakin licks his lips, and sits forward, accepting of but not resigned to the fact that he will never get an admission from Obi-Wan that isn’t first willingly proposed. He knows this. It’s fine. They can talk about the kid.

“Why’d you bring him?” he asks. “What happened on Mandalore?”

“There was a coup,” says Obi-Wan in a tone like the salt flats of the Jundland Wastes. “Satine fell, and her government was usurped.”

“By who?”

“Maul.”

Anakin spits a curse like acid, but Obi-Wan scarcely seems to note it. Instead, he keeps talking as though Maul is the least of his story.

“But he wasn’t alone,” he says. “He had his brother. And Death Watch turned the people. The city was lost. I only meant to get her out.”

“And Korkie.”

“I took him because his aunt told me to.”

“Satine did?”

“She’s not his aunt,” his master says, the admission coming like a weary sigh. “She’s his mother, and I...he’s my son.”

There are many things that Anakin feels in this moment. There is a nasty, vindictive kind of ache that licks at his throat like flames when he hears that Maul had brought his own brother, when Obi-Wan had not. There is sorrow for the Duchess, and righteous indignation on her behalf at the perfidy of her people. There is a whipping cyclone of confusion and disbelief as Obi-Wan refers to a second woman whom Anakin doesn’t know, and then a son he’s already met, but who should be impossible. And an anger as this settles in, and he realises the depth of his master’s betrayal.

“Your son,” he repeats, and Obi-Wan only nods. He rises, having nothing more and far too much to say, and palms open the door. He spares Obi-Wan only a single moment from the threshold. “You should have told me,” he says.

And Obi-Wan, still gazing at the ceiling, still gripping the pleats of bedsheets in his hand, just shakes his head. “I didn’t know.”

[hellowkatey]

Febuwhump Day 25

Prompt: car (speeder) accident

This is a 2-part one, with day 26: recovery being the next chapter. Stay tuned for that!

Read on AO3

I Will Always Be Here

Anakin is quite confident in the fact that there is nothing better than the feeling of flying. An open cockpit, the wind blowing his hair back so his padawan braid waves in the wind. He weaves in and out of the busy Coruscant traffic. He likes flying through rush hour best, something that Master Obi-Wan thinks him crazy for. It reminds him of pod racing back on Tattoine-- it has everything but the stupid sand that always kicks up in his eyes: People cutting in front of him, yelling obscenities at him as he passes, some try to physically knock him out of the sky.

If he thinks hard enough, he can hear his mother's voice cheering him on. She never liked him pod racing, but she always cheered him on.

Master Obi-Wan on the other hand, detests his flying. He doesn't like it when he flies the both of them and likes it even less when he goes off on his own. He claims it's "dangerous" to fly on Coruscant. Anakin thinks if he ever saw a real pod race, he'd agree a little traffic is nothing. Besides, if he gets a little flying out of his system a few times a week, then he is less inclined to try to annoy his master into letting him pilot. It's a win-win all-around.

As he does a barrel-roll over a bright red speeder, sending the driver into an angry tizzy, he laughs aloud. A few horns accompany. He pretends it's the hollers of applause.

Anakin pulls off into another lane, this one going much faster than the others. He grins and presses on the acceleration. His speeder is narrow, small enough to fit between the gap between two flashily-painted speeders. And so he pushes forward, wedging himself inches from both of the speeders.

What Anakin didn't anticipate were the other two speeders to match his speed. He looks between them uneasily, two Trandosians with amused grins on their faces. Like they were hoping he'd try this. Anakin tries to increase his speed, and they copy. He slows, they slow.

"C'mon fellas," Anakin yells across the howling of the wind. "This is my exit."

One of them just cackles, and the other swerves off. The Jedi padawan relaxes, but then feels a sharp bump against the side of his speeder. His head snaps to the side, and the other Trandosian is glaring at him.

"Then exit," he growls, and he slams against the speeder again, harder this time. Anakin's eyes narrow, and he slams back.

"I've beat sleemos like you when I was five! Quit it!"

His body is thrust in the other direction, and he looks with wide eyes at the reemergence of the other Trandosian. Now, Anakin has participated in many pod races in his short life, but he suddenly realizes that he isn't zooming through the Dune Sea or the outskirts of Mos Espa, but hundreds of meters above the surface of a very busy megapolis-- thousands of levels above the very bottom of the planet. Though he isn't afraid, he suddenly gets a burst of cautiousness.

His worry comes too late, though, because now he has two speeders flanking him from either side with seemingly no intention of letting him go.

"You'll learn your manners, boy," the second snaps, and Anakin is slammed into the speeder of the other especially hard, which makes his head feel like it's rattling around in his skull, but it at least gives him the space to escape their grasp. He presses the acceleration pedal all the way down, surging ahead of his road ragers.

Had he left a second earlier, he probably would have made it. But the Trandosian he crashed into managed to recover, bumping the back end of his speeder and sending him into a tailspin. Anakin screams as the world around him spins into a blur of color and horns and incoherent yelling that get lost in the whistle of the air.

The Force is also screaming, but Anakin is too panicked to make out what it's trying to say. His downward momentum is pulling him against his seatbelt, too far to reach the steering apparatus. He curses a string of Huttese words his mother would have made him stand in a corner for saying as he tries to concentrate on turning the wheel.

By the grace of the Force, the speeder straightens, the surface of Coruscant suddenly much closer than it was seconds ago. Too close. He pulls up on the steering, hoping for a last miracle, but he's moving much too fast.

Anakin's speeder crashes into the ground, hissing and crumbling as the roll guard snaps up and Anakin's world goes upside-down once more

__________

Any other day, Obi-Wan is willing to look past his padawan's... extracurricular activities. He isn't blind to the fact that Anakin likes to disappear sometimes, as does a particular Temple speeder that has been suspiciously modified to move much quicker than the others. But connecting with Anakin can be difficult, and he always reappears in a good mood, so Obi-Wan figures it's a secret he will let the kid keep.

Qui-Gon was also quite complimentary about his flying skills. Though Anakin's particular brand of flying is not Obi-Wan's... ideal method of getting from one point to the next, he supposes he's competent enough.

But unfortunately, today is not any other day because the council alerted him of a mission, and he had to vaguely explain to an unamused Mace Windu what he meant by needing to "track down his padawan". Anakin isn't answering his commlink, and so now Obi-Wan finds himself on a speeder, weaving through Coruscant's traffic.

Blast, Anakin we are going to have a very long talk about answering your commlink, he thinks as he has to pull a hard right to follow the tracking beacon of Anakin's speeder. This boy will be the death of--

The Force cries out in a burst of panic and fear, and up ahead Obi-Wan watches a bright green speeder slam into a smaller one, sending it tumbling out of the sky. He doesn't hesitate before slamming his steering wheel down, cutting out of the flow of traffic and beelining for the out-of-control speeder. He can feel Anakin from here, his panic palpable. Obi-Wan reaches through their bond, hearing the echo of his thoughts in his own head. Just... straighten.

He isn't going to get it, he realizes, and Obi-Wan stretches out with the Force, wrapping every ounce of his powers around the spinning speeder, and he tugs. Anakin's vehicle comes to a sudden halt in its downward twirl, but his momentum is still too great. Obi-Wan sees it happen before it does-- the speeder rolling and crumbling with every rotation along the ground Anakin miraculously found.

And then he hears the crunch of durasteel crumbling against ferrocrete, and a sharp cry ring through the commotion. It's so much worse than his momentary glimpse of it all.

"Anakin!" he yells, his yell guttural and pained. Obi-Wan skids his speeder to a stop a few meters away from where the wreckage lies, jumping from his seat before he has a chance to stop. His muscles feel heavy from using his Force powers, and he is hardly able to cushion his impact into the ground, but he doesn't care. The speeder is at rest now, but it looks more like a pile of junk than something that was flying just moments before. He can't see Anakin, but he can hear him-- a low groan punctuated by a sharp wheeze. The Jedi Knight runs to the other side, drawing in a breath and trying to hold onto a calm mood as he surveys the severity of the scene.

Anakin is wrapped in the crumpled durasteel like a cocoon, his body folded in on himself and his head leaning heavily against what's left of the door. He can see the blood trickling from his nose, and a deep cut at his hairline covering half his face with blood. The rest of his body is unknown.

It's not as bad as it looks. It's not as bad as it looks...

Obi-Wan takes out his lightsaber and carefully carves away the pieces of the speeder to get him out. He can hear emergency services pulling up, their sirens wailing. And he hears the sound of Master Windu's voice and only vaguely remembers pressing the emergency beacon on his commlink. A hand on his shoulder. A voice whose words don't quite compute. And then a hand on his wrist, stopping his progress.

The Jedi Knight snaps back into reality to find Mace Windu looking at him with a placid expression.

"Let them do their job, Knight Kenobi," he says, and suddenly he is aware of a team of Coruscant guards and Temple healers standing by. "Go back to the Temple and wait for him to be assessed."

"But--"

"Obi-Wan," he says, stern but pleading. "Temple. That's an order."

His throat feels tight and he realizes the hand that Windu isn't holding steady is shaking. He nods, deactivating his saber and stepping back. The Jedi Master's hand remains on his shoulder, guiding him away as the healers draw their own shortened sabers and finish the job.

He sees them pull out his body, and really that's all it looks to be. Anakin remains still-- very still. Too still amongst the chaos that ensues around him. Usually, his padawan is the source of the vibrant energy that fills a room, but now he's just...

He can feel their bond. Feel how it's muted and strained. I'm here, he projects through it, unsure whether Anakin can hear him or not. I'm here, for you my padawan.

Another gentle suggestion from Windu to continue. Obi-Wan looks away as they are loading him onto a stretcher.

There's so much blood.

Obi-Wan looks to the sky, hoping that maybe if he tilts his head back the tears will stay put. But as he does, a distinctive neon green speeder flies overhead, too low to be in the traffic lane and too fast to be landing. His eyes narrow, and Obi-Wan knows his next objective.

[crispyjenkins]

I’m resending it now! ok so what if for some reason Obi’s lightsaber either gets destroyed or the crystal stops resonating with him & He’s with Jango who goes with him to wherever the force guides him to find his new crystal at & like Obi goes through some wack vision/trial from the force and when he gets through it his new crystal reveals itself and it’s the same type of crystal like in the dark saber? And Jango is just losing it when he sees it bc he thinks “HOW?! but also, That’s HOT” hehe

(my DUDE i’m so flippin glad you re-sent this, i’ve had to force myself not to write this one so i could get other people’s prompts out, and i was at first unsure of how to spin this, but holy FECK is it all i can think about now. i just. i just want to write so much of this obi. i’m sorry i didn’t get to jango much, but you bet your butters he and obi are connected every which way in this, in ways beyond force bonds because i’m a dramatic bitch.

i hope y’all enjoy this one as much as i did!!)

edit 6/26/20: this is now part of a full fix-it! you can read it as it updates here on my Ao3! updates on fridays.

  Illum is colder than he remembered, though the last time Obi-Wan had been here, he had not feared wrapping himself up in the Force. It’s been... Force, he hasn’t been back since after Melida/Daan, and something in him breaks again at the thought that he’d lost the ‘saber that had been with him for more than a decade. But, no, a lightsaber is a small price to pay to have saved his master.

  His former master. He isn't Qui-Gon’s apprentice anymore, Anakin had made sure of that.  

  Obi-Wan had been sent to Illum alone, no younglings in need of making their first ‘saber, and no one else needing to replace theirs; Anakin has a few more months in the crèche before he can build his, and Obi-Wan can’t thank the council enough that he doesn’t have to walk the caves knowing his replacement is somewhere doing the same. With Qui-Gon still in the Halls, Master Plo had stepped forward in offer to knight him, and had almost had to fight Master Depa for the honor, which was... strange. He’s used to quite the opposite of masters fighting over him, but an amused Yoda had almost used his lineage status to refuse them both for himself instead, until Mace, as Master of the Order, had given the right to Plo Koon. And Jedi do not gloat, but the Kel Dor had certainly been smiling behind his mask.

  The doors to the caves open easily despite the ice, so maybe his great-grandmaster had been right about Obi-Wan rebuilding his lightsaber before his knighting ceremony. This thought doesn’t settle the feeling of intruding when he steps over the threshold, the marrow-deep feeling of being an imposter in one of the most holy places in the galaxy. 

  The kyber hums around him, as if he wasn’t at this exact moment considering walking away from the Order.

  He’s hardly a proper Jedi, is he? Killing a Sith with a sai tok, falling in love with Satine, holding a grudge against a nine year-old freed slave for taking his master away from him. Hadn’t he drawn on the dark side to defeat the Zabrak? Killed him not out of duty to his vow but in revenge for the fallen Qui-Gon? His lightsaber might have cauterised the wounds, but he has blood on his hands all the same.

  So he keeps walking, refusing to touch a single crystal he passes. The Force tugs him deeper into the caves anyways, and he has half a thought to ignoring it (does he even deserve to listen to it anymore?) but for all his tumultuous thoughts, Obi-Wan is beholden to the Force, beholden to the grip it has in his viscera. 

  He follows it as his breath forms clouds before his lips, frost on his skin that he cannot even feel. Where would he go, if he left? Stewjon is insular, they would not want him back, but he cannot stay at the Temple. Naboo, perhaps? Padmé would surely welcome him, but could he really settle down on such a peaceful planet after spending over half his life running around the stars with his master?

  Closing his eyes at the memory of Satine, he allows himself to... consider it. Would she still want him? They haven’t spoken since, but sometimes he can feel her in his mind still, a little warm bud that could bloom, if he let it. And even if she threw him out, Mandalore isn’t a bad place to restart.

  “Could I really?” he muses out loud, stepping over a great crack in the stone floor and setting his feet to follow a barely-there path towards the lake, only for the Force to have him veer away from it. Could he really give up being a Jedi? After every trial the Force had put him through to even become an apprentice? Oh, but he had tried so. kriffing. hard. to get this far, could he really do anything else?

  He swallows thickly and almost desperately pulls the Force back around himself, as if in apology, as if in repentance, as if anguish—

  Peace, it whispers, brushing over his mind even as it sinks claws into his ribs and pulls him up short.

  Obi-Wan is twelve again, wind whipping around him as the Jedi transport takes off from Bandomeer, Qui-Gon Jinn staring down at him. Force, but he hasn’t ever felt worse than when he feels their raw bond stretching with distance, yanking deep in him until he’s breathless, doesn’t Master Jinn feel it—?

  And Obi-Wan is sitting in the living room of their Temple apartment, kneeling on his cloth meditation mat across from Qui-Gon’s bamboo one. His master’s warmth surrounds him in a glittering cloud of comfort and ease, and they’ve been at this for five years now, and still Obi-Wan holds this as his most treasured memory, something to cling to when things seem desolate or he’s been arguing with Qui-Gon, or—

  He’s in the glass city of Sundari, brushing a hand over Satine’s cheek as she laughs, and Force, she’s even more beautiful than he remembers— She’s dying in his arms, bruises violent red around her throat, a sizzling ‘saber wound through her middle, and she’s beautiful even now, oh Force not like this—

  Obi-Wan is older, his joints a little creakier, his hair grey at the temples, and he has a beskad sticking out of his chest. Above him is a boy that looks suspiciously like him, red hair and green eyes but with Satine’s lips and eyebrows. Korkie, the Force tells him, as the boy leans over Obi-Wan and why is he angry? Ah, so this blade had not been meant for him—

  Anakin, little Anakin with a padawan braid beams up at him in a training salle with a practice saber in his fists. Obi-Wan moves to correct his kata, and though he’s... sure he had never learned this from Qui-Gon, he knows it’s Form III, he knows it’s Soresu like he knows his own name, like he knows the padawan bond in his mind and the warm nova glow of Anakin attached to his core—

  Obi-Wan is an old man, seated on a perfectly smooth grey stone above a green, green cliff battered by ocean waves and briny air. He meditates with the knowledge he had come from here, the Force here as close to home as he could ever hope to achieve. He had not searched for the family that left him on the Temple steps, and that’s just fine by him, he could not have asked for a better place to begin his seclusion studies than Stewjon—

  Obi-Wan is an old man, seated on a perfectly smooth red stone, the desert cliffs around him worn smooth from the sand that batters around him, ripping through his robes but never touching his skin. The Force is feral here, claws and bone and teeth teeth teeth, but somewhere out in the dunes, there shines Luke, pearlescent and good and proof that Obi-Wan has not failed just yet. 

  Satine is screaming at him as she shoves Korkie behind her back and raises a beskad that seems wrong, wrong in her hands, but he doesn’t have time to think about his heart wielding a blade, when he’s wielding the darksaber, whistling as it cuts through the air against Tor Vizsla, why had they trusted him, he knew he could not be trusted, and now his family is going to pay the price— His ‘saber, black as space, connects with Vizsla's, black as night, and Obi-Wan is not wielding the darksaber, but something else entirely, with a beskad’s edge, with a hum that’s almost a scream, that moves towards the darksaber with the intent to shatter—

  A Mando in blue and silver beskar’gam hands him a hilt, hammered durasteel wrapped in black leather, so unlike any Jedi ‘saber hilt he’s ever seen, but Obi-Wan knows it’s his from the way it sings, the way the Force insists it’s his his his—

  The blue and silver Mando with his helmet off, a man so unspeakably gorgeous that Obi-Wan wonders how he even copes— The Mando’s gloved hand grips Obi-Wan’s wrist, the face he knows so well twisted into dread and anger. Don’t go, they beg, but Obi-Wan must, he cannot abandon Mandalore, he cannot—, Don’t you realize that Zabrak’s fucking crazy? Obi-Wan, he’s going to kill you—

  Obi-Wan is older, but not much, pinned underneath blue and silver armour as Sundari glass and blasterfire rains around them—

  Obi-Wan watches the Beautiful Mando sleeping with his head pillowed on Obi-Wan’s arm, a new scar curling through his eyebrow that he hasn’t asked about yet—

  A mini Beautiful Mando eyes him suspiciously, hands on his hips while his buir stands behind him and tries not to laugh—

  Obi-Wan is on Illum, but he is not, he weaves his way through dusty streets he has never seen before and yet knows the way by heart, following that heart towards the hangar where his aliit waits. He has beads braided messily in his hair, twisted by pudgy fingers insisting Obi-Wan deserves to look just as pretty as his buir; that durasteel and leather hilt bounces against his hip, and he has a single blue and silver gauntlet on his right arm. He is a Jedi, the Force assures him, in the way light bends through him, but he is also Mando’ad, he knows that without needing to ask. He belongs to a planet and to a people that he did not start with, in a strange Force-willed way that he can’t explain, and he’s a Jedi, but he knows he has a family waiting for him in an old police craft. A black-bladed ‘saber hums at his side.

  Obi-Wan opens his eyes in front of a rock wall, glittering kyber in every colour rising up the sheer face until their little lights disappear into the darkness far above him. Just above eye-level, there is a small crater in the wall, as if the rest of the kyber cannot grow around the single crystal at the crater’s center. 

  It is opalescent and space-black, and looks as if it had been cut for a piece of opulent jewellery. The Force whispers heart heart heart, and he supposes it does look the size and shape of a beskar’ta, and isn’t that fitting?

  When he reaches out to take it, the white glow at its edges seems to suck in the light from around it, and it sings higher than any crystal he’s ever touched, whistling trials and heartbreak and pain and blood, but also love and laughter and family, if he lets it form the notes just right. It sings in Mando’a, in war gods and clans and beskar, and it sings for Obi-Wan alone.

-   Across the galaxy, Jango wakes on Jaster’s Legacy in a cold sweat.

Translations/Other: sai tok — the ‘saber move of cutting an opponent in half, frowned upon by the Jedi for its roots in the dark side. beskad — traditional Mandalorian curved saber made of beskar. allit — Mando’a for “clan” or “family”. buir — Mando’a for “parent”, gender neutral. beskar’ta — Mando’a for “iron heart”, the elongated hex-shape common in Mandalorian armour designs (great post here comparing them to katana tsuba). also called ka’rta beskar or “heart of the iron”. Jaster’s Legacy — Jaster’s old ship that Jango found and used post Galidraan, and pre Slave I.

[the-last-kenobi]

How about “Disowned by Family” for bad things happen bingo?

Hello! 🤍 Thanks for the request for @badthingshappenbingo

Ooh, the angst potential is through the roof. Tried to choose the focus based off of what I remember you writing and reading on ao3 (or maybe I just went hmmmm evil)

“Good job, Obi-Wan!” a woman cried, her voice warm with joy. “Very well done!”

Obi-Wan found himself grinning even as he launched himself from one difficult landing into another gravity-defying leap, sweat dripping from his skin.

“Don’t coddle him,” laughed a male’s voice, but he sounded fond. “Keep at it, Padawan, retain your focus.”

Obi-Wan did not waste breath on a reply, whirling through the air, springing from one part of the training room to the other, swinging from posts and tumbling under moving obstacles, listening to the cues the Force gave him when he concentrated.

At last he landed on the mat in the center of the room, and the droids and obstacles ceased their moving, and the fifteen-year-old Jedi dropped to his knees, gasping for breath but triumphant.

“That was beautifully done, Obi-Wan!” Tahl cried, ignoring Qui-Gon’s protests. She rushed toward the boy and clasped his shoulders in congratulations. “I haven’t seen a junior Padawan that skilled in Ataru since your Master.”

“You’re too kind to both of us,” Qui-Gon shook his head as he joined them, standing tall above his kneeling friend and apprentice. Then he smiled. “But she’s not wrong — that was beautifully done, my Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan laughed and bowed his head, happy to be humble before them.

A strange gift, for a Jedi — to have two people so very like parents.

~

Obi-Wan kept his head low, terrified to look upwards, terrified of what he would see, what he would feel.

There was a heavily wrapped split over one leg, stained with grime and blood. More red liquid was slowly seeping from beneath its edges, gleaming wetly. Shadows lapped at his feet like predators playing with their food before the eating. The Darkness was closing in. But he knew this was mere fanciful thought, and not an actual omen, that his fears were outpacing his reality.

Which was already cast in shadow.

The flickering lights were caused by the flames burning in front of him, and the flames were burning Tahl. Who was dead.

Because of him. The cast around his leg, barely holding up after a day of running, days in hyperspace, and then three days in the Temple, hiding in his room and speaking to nobody, which concealed beneath it an injury that had delayed him and his Master.

And Tahl had died, and now she burned.

Obi-Wan kept his eyes low. He did not deserve to say goodbye, he could not bear to see.

Slowly the flames died, and the shadows consumed. The other Jedi watching departed in silence, murmuring only soft benedictions and farewells.

Obi-Wan kept his eyes on his feet.

Something shifted in the shadows, and from the other side of the empty pyre emerged a familiar figure. Qui-Gon walked quietly around the place where his love had burned and crossed to his Padawan.

A large hand settled on Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

“Listen to me,” Qui-Gon said in a low voice. “By my word and by the expectation of the Council, I am obligated to see you to Knighthood.”

Obi-Wan watched as tears blurred the boot tips he had been staring at for so long. Blackness swam in front of his eyes.

“But I no longer care,” Qui-Gon said. There was no wrath in his voice, no hissing, no venom. He simply spoke. “I will seek the Council out at dawn and you will be formally repudiated for negligence that cost the life of another Jedi.”

Obi-Wan’s tears escaped his eyes. They trembled for a moment against his lashes before they fell, striking the stones with a soft noise.

Qui-Gon sighed. “I told you that you were not capable of living the life of a Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Your persistence cost the life of a better.”

And then he walked away.

And Obi-Wan was alone.

~

“Good job, Anakin!” Obi-Wan cried, clapping his hands sharply. At his signal, the young Padawan stopped his kata demonstration and turned to grin at him, bowing with bravado.

Even after two years of training, Anakin managed to surprise him daily.

The first surprise had been when Anakin, all of nine, had announced to the Council that Qui-Gon Jinn had requested before his death that Obi-Wan Kenobi, trained to Knighthood by Mace Windu, would step in if Anakin should ever need a teacher. While Obi-Wan was still reeling, blindsided and drowning in memories of disgrace and ashes, Anakin had also presented another surprise: he had attached himself to Obi-Wan’s leg and refused to let go. Almost literally, mostly metaphorically.

They bonded immediately.

“Come here, Padawan,” he called.

Anakin came running, his braid flapping against his cheek, still beaming. “I told you I could do it! I told you so, Master!”

“So you did,” Obi-Wan agreed, and he reached out as the boy slid to a stop before him and tugged gently on the blonde braid. Anakin growled in mock rage and leaned away. “But, my very young Padawan, I also told you not to attempt it. I’m grateful for your skill because it proves that you’re strong and capable, but also because it saved you from injury. If you had truly not been ready, you could have been seriously hurt.”

Anakin barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. “But I knew I could do it, and I just proved it!”

Obi-Wan sighed, his hand moving from the braid to Anakin’s shoulder, squeezing slightly as he tried to make his impudent, mischievous student focus on him for a moment. “And you disobeyed me to do so. So now you have a victory slightly tainted by that. And what if the next time I command you not to do something, you do it anyways and it goes badly wrong? You overreach, or circumstances intervene, and you’re hurt? In the field that could very often be the case, which is why I need to know that you’re accustomed to obeying. I can’t trust you on the field if I can’t trust you at home.”

Anakin’s face sank into lines of bitterness and shame, his head ducked low. Anger heated his cheeks.

Obi-Wan stopped himself, taking a slow breath.

“I’m sorry, Anakin,” he said quietly, and he squeezed Anakin’s shoulder a little tighter, rubbing the edge of his thumb up and down as if to soothe the boy. “Forgive your Master, he likes to hear himself talk.”

“Hey, that’s true,” Anakin chuckled, but he still didn’t raise his head.

Obi-Wan laughed quietly. “Yes. And while I made some very good points, things I want you to think about as we approach our first mission— there’s one more thing I want you to remember from this.”

Anakin’s shoulders slumped. “…Yes, Master?”

“You did extremely well today,” Obi-Wan reminded him. “And I am proud of you for working so hard and believing in your capabilities.”

Anakin’s head jerked up, and a beam spread slowly across his young face again. “Thanks,” he said a little shyly. “I’m grateful for your teachings, Obi-Wan. There’s no one I trust more than you.”

~

Dooku was a traitor and had escaped capture, war had been declared, over a hundred Jedi were dead, Obi-Wan’s leg was so injured that he was stuck in a cast and splint for two weeks, and Anakin… Anakin had lost most of his arm.

Obi-Wan could think of few moments in his life that had frightened him more than lying helpless on the floor while his student payed for his reckless behavior with a limb.

Now he sat here by Anakin’s bed, waiting for him to wake up to his new mech arm and hand.

Obi-Wan had no idea how to guide the boy through this.

He stared at his hands in his lap for awhile, and then at the bandaged leg, the stupid bandaged leg. This wound, it had stopped him from getting to Anakin in time.

He would never forgive himself—

“Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes flew to the bed, where Anakin was blinking at him in a daze, his hair in disarray and an expression of pinched pain on his still youthful face.

“Anakin,” he gasped, and sat upright, his leg throbbing as he moved. He grabbed his Padawan’s remaining flesh hand with his. Hoping to transfer some of his warmth. To ease the terrible chill.

“You… you’re here.”

“Yes.”

“Did you bother,” Anakin said, his voice a dry rasp, “to ask yourself if I wanted you here?”

Obi-Wan went very still. “I… I’m sorry. I thought you might want company. I can go.”

“Company, yeah,” Anakin replied. “But not you.”

Obi-Wan stopped halfway through standing up. He clung to the arm of the fragile chair, his bad leg trembling beneath his weight. “Is there… if there’s something we need to discuss…”

“You’re a liar,” Anakin said flatly.

Obi-Wan reeled.

“You’re a fake,” Anakin continued. “You pretend to care about me, pretend to be my friend, pretend to be the perfect Jedi. But someone who was a good teacher and a good friend would never have ignored my visions.”

“Anakin, what—” Obi-Wan asked, and could not tell if the strain of tears was caused by the pain in his leg or the explosion of anguish in his chest.

“I told you I dreamed of my mother!” Anakin shouted. “You let her die!”

“I don’t — you said dreams, you never said — Anakin, I’m sorry, I would never have—”

“And then you couldn’t even hold off Dooku,” Anakin spat, “and you made us abandon Padmé in the sand! She could have been killed, but you only cared about the chase. Nothing ever matters to you but the mission!”

“Anakin, no,” Obi-Wan said, and it was a sob this time. He felt disoriented, blindsided.

Last time, he had been expecting it, but now—

“I want you out of this room,” Anakin said, still helplessly slumped against his pillow but so full of betrayal and rage that he seemed about to spring from the bed and throttle his Master. ��And when I recover enough to get out of this bed, I’m going to the Council to petition for Knighthood or for another Master to finish my training.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan whispered. “I’m sorry. Please.”

But Anakin was shaking his head. “You’re broken. You shouldn’t have been a Padawan, and never a Knight, and absolutely not a Master. Do you understand me?” The apprentice was breathing heavily, his eyes still glazed with drugs and grief. “You leave here and figure out some other place to be. You don’t belong here.”

Anakin glared at him until Obi-Wan had backed out of the room, leaning hard on the chair he was dragging.

As soon as the door slid shut, Obi-Wan collapsed against a wall, his forehead pressed against the cold metal, his hand still clenched around the chair.

And Obi-Wan was alone.

fin.

[wonderlandleighleigh]

(Another followup to this, this and this)

Mothers of Jedi do not frequently visit the Jedi Temple of Coruscant.

Not that Satine Kryze cares very much. There are only two Jedi she eve n cares for, and the rest can wally in their detachment and apathy until they whither and die as far as she’s concerned.

That’s harsh.

Maybe not die.

Perhaps just wither. 

“Are you sure this is alright?” Shmi Skywalker asks nervous as they step inside the temple. The older woman’s hand trembles against Satine’s elbow, as she looks around with wide eyes. 

As much as Shmi has gotten used to the Sundari palace on Mandalore, the Jedi Temple really is a sight to behold.

A place that feels so ancient and prestigious is intimidating even to Satine herself, though she’s been here before. 

Not that any of High Council know about that...

“It is fine,” Satine soothes her. “You have a right to visit your son and see how he is doing.” 

Shmi smiles, though still nervously. “I am excited to see him.” 

It’s been a full year since Obi-Wan and Anakin visited Mandalore; all parties had agreed that sparse visits would be best if Anakin still wanted to become a Jedi. 

“As well you should be,” Satine grins at her, patting her hand gently. “He’s doing well.” 

It’s not a lie. The times she’s seen Anakin and Obi-Wan when she’s been on Coruscant have been completely different since she’d set Shmi up on Mandalore. Anakin is upbeat and helpful, and Obi-Wan says his ability to concentrate and meditate has improved ten-fold. 

“Duchess.” 

Satine takes a breath and turns, finding Yoda and Mace Windu standing behind the two women, both Jedi looking confused. 

“A surprise it is, to see you here at the Temple,” Yoda tells Satine. “Brought a friend, you have.” 

“Actually, this is Shmi Skywalker,” Satine grins at them. “She is here to visit with her son. Shmi, this is Master Yoda, Grand Master of the Jedi High Council, and Master Mace Windu, also on the Council.” 

Windu stiffens visibly. “We weren’t notified of this visit.” 

“I wasn’t aware a harmless lunch between one of your Padawans and his mother warranted disrupting your busy schedules,” Satine comments. “It isn’t as if we’re here to take young Anakin away with us.” 

“I’m not sure I’d put it past you,” Mace says, clearly only half-joking. “Padawan Skywalker is in lightsaber training right now, though unless he decides to ware Obi-Wan out again, that should be ending soon.” 

“Thank you,” Shmi says, bowing her head, obviously still nervous. 

Yoda tilts his head, taking the woman in. Her clothes are simple and warm (even though it’s summer - a habit Anakin also has...), and her dark hair pulled back into a tight bun. She smiles hesitantly at them, as if she may be thrown out of the temple at any moment. 

“Take you to you Anakin, we will,” Yoda says, offering her his hand. “This way.” 

Shmi smiles gratefully and takes the offered hand, leaving Satine and Mace to fall back. 

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Duchess,” Mace says quietly. “Attachment is-” 

“If I have to hear yet another speech about how terrible attachment is for Jedi, I am going to vomit all over your tunic, Master Windu,” Satine tells him. “Shmi Skywalker only wishes to see how her son - the only family she has, after a lifetime of a slavery - is doing. There is now harm in it.” 

“It is distracting, and attachment can lead to possessiveness for Jedi, which can lead to anger, which can lead to the Dark Side,” Mace explains. “Is that what you want for Skywalker?” 

“They haven’t seen each other in a year,” Satine argues. “She’ll be here on Coruscant for a few days, and then I will take her back to Mandalore.” 

“And if Skywalker makes an enemy who goes after his mother?” Mace asks. 

Satine rolls her eyes. “Then she’ll be much better protected on Mandalore, working in the palace than she would have been on Tatooine, where her only value is how much work that awful Toydarian could get out of her.” 

“You have an answer for everything,” Mace grumbles. 

“Because I have, indeed, thought all of this out,” Satine tells him. “Freeing Shmi Skywalker was not done on a whim, Master Windu. I saw a situation that needed correcting, I made a plan, and I followed through, and now she is here to spend a little time with her son. After which, she will go back to a life where she has a nice job, friends, and a safe place to live. Why do you seem so against this?” 

“Because it feeds into Skywalker’s attachment.” 

“If I may interject,” Shmi sees, as they stop in front of the training chamber that Obi-Wan and Anakin are using. She turns to Mace and takes a breath. “I know that this is not how Jedi normally do things. And I was prepared to never see Anakin again when I let him go with Master Qui-Gon...I know that I can see my son very little. But it is enough for me. And I believe it is enough for him. It’s enough for him that I am no longer a slave.” 

“A good point this is,” Yoda says gently. “Never has young Skywalker snuck away to see his mother. Rarely does he mention her anymore, now that she is safe.” He looks up at Mace. “Dangerous attachments can be. But tempered with control this seems to be. Allow it we should.” He glances at Shmi briefly. “Though not too often.” 

The door to the training chamber slides up and Obi-Wan steps out, looking terribly winded; sweat dotting his forehead. He freezes when he sees the four of them. “Hello, there.” 

“Mom?” Anakin nearly runs Obi-Wan over to get to her, stepping past everyone and hugging her tightly. “Hi!” 

Shmi laughs and pats his back gently. “You are a mess, Ani.” 

“I just ran Obi-Wan ragged. You should have seen it. I thought he was going to have a stroke!” 

Obi-Wan huffs and pushes his hair back, giving Yoda, Mace and Satine a confused, nervous smile. “Quite the motley crew” 

“A surprise, the Duchess has brought Padawan Skywalker,” Yoda chuckles. “guided them to you we have.” 

“Yes, they were most helpful,” Satine grins. “Even has Master Windu grumbled along the way.” 

“I wouldn’t call my voicing my concerns grumbling,” Mace points out. 

Satine looks up thoughtfully. ‘And yet...” 

“Now, Duchess Satine, it isn’t fair to argue with Master Windu when he hasn’t had enough time to prepare his side,” Obi-Wan teases. “Give him a week’s notice next time, and I’m certain he’ll be ready.” 

“Well, that isn’t any fun at all,” Satine tells them. “Now, I thought the four of us might go back to my apartment and have some lunch together.” 

“Ani will help me cook for us,” Shmi says. 

“No, Mom, you cook all the time, I’ll cook today,” Anakin tells her. 

Mace clears his throat softly. “Perhaps you could all eat here, and we could join you. It’s lunchtime for us as well. And...perhaps...” he glances at Yoda before looking bat at Anakin and Shmi. “Perhaps we could get to know your mother a little better, Skywalker.” 

“That’s a nice idea,” Obi-Wan says. “As long as Anakin doesn’t make the food too spicy.” 

“What’s ‘too spicy’ anyway?” Anakin jokes, earning himself a nudge from his mother.

[mecomptane]

Blew up my old laptop so I’m trying to recover things from it. (Okay, a slight exaggeration. Maybe.) Apparently I decided to write Star Wars fic at some point? It’s here for posterity, definitely no beta, can’t guarantee the quality. So, the usual. (Pretty sure this was also a 3am sort of thing.)

-

Yoda has been Grand Master of the Jedi Order for going on five centuries, alive for nearly nine, and still, sometimes, feels like he's barely one.

It's few and far between, admittedly--history doesn't exactly repeat, no, but the motivations of sapient beings don't particularly change, and once you understand why people make the choices they do, then you can generally guess what any person or group might do in response. It's not flawless and has failed him before, but between lived experience, his strength in the Force, and the Republic having little changed, overall, he's usually right. Or at least, unsurprised.

The Councilors call him unflappable, the Masters and Knights steadfast, and the Padawans and Initiates whisper that he is Ancient and Omniscient.

Yoda, mostly, calls himself tired.

This is a song and dance he knows well, has all but memorized the steps to. Padawans become Knights become Masters and find an Initiate to teach and mentor and raise, the closest they will ever be to children of blood being children of their hearts. Years--in some cases, a decade or more--will weave the two into a knot of compassion and knowledge and reliance (but never attachment), and with the Trials the Master shears their Padawan's braid and the Padawan shears the rope that had once bound them so tightly, and the two walk away, together but inherently separate, to live their lives as sole individuals connected only by the gossamer web and weave of the Force, as all living things do.

Countless have come and gone, all with slightly different steps or rhythms. Not all have been successful. Jedi walk in the light and dream of the sun, but shadowy corners and secrets in darkness are tempting, too intriguing to pass up the chance to investigate. Rare are those who give in; rarer still are those who find their way back. But it does happen, as much as they might wish it otherwise.

Yoda has seen all of them in nearly a millennia, can trace the pattern and knows the steps of that dance, too. Not that of true Sith, no, but the path to becoming a Darksider is identical to that of a Jedi with only a few steps reversed, repeated, skipped over. Once the first misstep occurs, it takes barely any thought to see where and how the dance might change. Will they weave back and forth, between light and darkness? Will they flit into the shadows briefly and find it not to their taste, thereafter choosing only the path strung with the lanterns of faith? Will they stumble into the shadows once, twice, again and again, until the light itself hurts their eyes and they cannot see save anywhere but darkness?

One step, two, a few more--that's all it takes, now, for Yoda to know. He's been wrong, true, but those times were more that he'd given into hope. Hope that they'd find their way into the light, that their dance would one day realign with that of the rest of the Jedi.

So as Yoda sits among the Council, the dimming light of Coruscant's pale setting sun struggling in through the windows, he is thrown. Surprised. Confused.

"I will take him as my Padawan," Qui-Gon Jinn says, hands resting reassuringly on the shoulders of a supernova given form. So bright, so powerful, spilling everywhere with little control, care, or concern. Yoda can barely look.

Behind the duo stands a white dwarf of the Force, the light and warmth turned inward and controlled, peaceful but puissant and exactly like a Jedi should be, but.

But.

"Obi-Wan? He is ready for his Trials."

"Decide that, the Council shall."

In a room of so much light, where the brightest and most powerful Jedi in the galaxy sit in state, there is an undercurrent of shadows. A slight dimming in the corners, a hint of something obscuring the warmth and nurturing rays.

Qui-Gon Jinn. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Anakin Skywalker.

Yoda looks between them and the Council, and wonders.

-

When he was younger, Yoda delighted in his Padawan learners. That he lived so much longer than any other species or race was a detriment to others, but it allowed him to have generations of Padawans and their Padawans, Grandpadawans and Greatgrandpadawans. Each of his students had siblings, younger or older; each had nieces and nephews; all had someone to fall back on, to speak with, to rely on. To be family with.

Attachment was not the Jedi way, but compassion and selfless love was. All of his students--and their students, so on and so forth--understood that, embraced that.

Eventually he became the Grand Master and became so busy with duties he could not devote the time to another Padawan, to his Lineage as he once did. They understood, relied more on each other, and while some came to him with questions or concerns it was a rarity. And then--somewhere along the lines--it stopped happening altogether. A Lineage was called after the oldest surviving member, but when there were gaps of three, four, ten generations... did one really still count as part of that Lineage? But that was fine, as it should be; the Force is Life and Life is forever changing, growing, renewing. Yoda had learnt at the side of a Master long gone but fondly remembered, now part of the Force; his students, too, memories and trinkets, memorabilia tucked carefully away in a chest in his room, never opened but a reminder nonetheless.

The desire to teach Dooku had been unexpected, unanticipated, almost unappreciated. It had been years since he last had a Padawan learner of his own... but why not? He'd long since turned over immediate day-to-day responsibilities to an aide, now the Master of the Order, and aside from popping in to teach classes or spend time in the creche, he had ample time for a personal student again.

Of course, the way that had turned out... but Dooku's own Padawan, Qui-Gon, had been bright and sensitive to the ways and wills of the Force, and always willing to help another Padawan, always willing to lend an ear or support. Maybe Dooku hadn't turned out as Yoda had hoped, but surely Qui-Gon would be better.

And he was, with Feemor. Maybe not the most in-touch Master, preferring books or research or his plants and animals and following the eddies of the Force invisible to most others, but he cared. He wanted Feemor to succeed, to thrive, as did Yoda. And Feemor did, passing his Trials with little difficulty and much grace; a Jedi Knight to be, surely, proud of.

Xanatos, however....

He'd deserved to be repudiated, true. Yoda had even cautioned Qui-Gon about his second Padawan, having seen the steps and the missteps and the constant swaying between light and dark. A Shadow, he'd suggested. Cautioned. Xanatos could not walk in the light, not like Feemor, but enough light he had in him to walk in both, to be a Shadow of their Order. Qui-Gon hadn't listened, still too proud, too arrogant, after Feemor.

In the end, Xanatos became a Darksider. Qui-Gon, as custom and duty and common sense demanded, repudiated him. But not just him, no, for if he'd gone so wrong with Xanatos, surely Feemor, too, was secretly not what he appeared to be? And so Feemor had suffered for his younger brother's choices, for Qui-Gon's pride and lack of attention to detail, for his desperation to not stain or blemish the Lineage of the Grand Master.

Two students, one Jedi Knight, one Darksider. Two repudiations, one earned, one not.

Qui-Gon had sworn off all further students, had nearly been convinced to take another, had rejected them in the end. The Force had brought them back together, and Qui-Gon could not ignore such a sign, but--

Obi-Wan is quiet in the Force. As a child he'd been as a river, calmly flowing one minute and the tempestuousness of white water the next, but always moving, always steady. As a babe... Yoda remembers the young human, presumed Stewjoni, being brought into the Hall of Healing for the first time, so young and already so part of the Force it had nearly wrapped around him. Not a vergence, not power, but a pin in an ever-changing tapestry, a marble dropped into the center of a taught sheet, a boulder in the middle of the river he'd become part of.

Chaos in the midst of calm, or the calm waters of the eye of a storm?

Obi-Wan learnt the steps of those around him, learnt to dance between light and darkness with Quinlan Vos and somewhere along the lines chose to remain in the light. But these were not his steps, Yoda could see. They were the steps of the Masters, the Knights, the Padawans, even other Initiates; they were what should be, what Kenobi himself clearly wanted to do, to be, but were copied from others, a reflection of truth and not what actually was.

The only times Yoda could remember Obi-Wan stepping out on his own, trying to make his own dance--Melida/Daan. Mandalore. Qui-Gon had either left him alone or with minimal guidance, and without the framework of the Order to guide him, Obi-Wan had fallen back on what he believed to be right, to be the will of the Force. Protect the Young. Protect the Duchess. Stop a war. (Even if it meant fighting.)

Obi-Wan wouldn't be happy strictly as a Peacekeeper, no. He had the knack for it, a skill with words and negotiations that most Masters could only wish for, but the boy's heart--his desire--was to defend and protect that which was Good.

And now, here. Naboo.

Qui-Gon's body lays in repose in the next room, waiting for the sunset and the pyre. Obi-Wan kneels before him, a Knight in a Padawan's garb, and while he never fails to make eye contact, there's a careful guard to it.

Peacekeepers do not kill, after all. Jedi are Peacekeepers; ergo, for all that he's tried to emulate them, Obi-Wan Kenobi is not a Peacekeeper. Not a Jedi.

He's a protector, and Yoda can see him realizing this even as he kneels and Yoda paces, otherwise in perfect silence.

Protectors need things to protect, things to cherish, attachments. How do you value something enough to protect it while maintaining a necessary distance? Even the Sentinels, guards as they are, keep their distance from their charges, no matter how many Younglings jump around and climb them and offer them sweets and pies.

"...even if I must leave the Order, I will train the boy."

And there is both the problem and the solution. Qui-Gon did a disservice to his student, leaving him to find his way alone. Even now, in death, Qui-Gon cannot complete the ritual to break their bond, to cut their ties so Obi-Wan may move forward alone. Yet it's clear that between the Council chamber and the reactor, the bond between them had already begun to unravel. Now what ritual there might be--it wouldn't have mattered, anyway. A sham, a farce, to be done with, if it would even happen at all.

Not that they didn't care about each other--no, he'd seen enough of them together to know that they did, but it was the care between two Knights or two Masters, not teacher-and-student, not father-and-son. Removed, careful, expecting and understanding that each could exist without the other ever in their lives again, but grateful for this brief opportunity to spend time beside each other.

So maybe Qui-Gon was right, in the end: maybe Obi-Wan had been ready for his Trials, having been acting the part of Knight already. No Trials now, Darth Maul's death is more than enough to count, and no ritual Knighting. Just the burning of a body... and the decision of a Knight to train a boy he barely knows.

A boy for the first time away from family and friends and familiarity, a boy... much like Obi-Wan once was, if only Yoda had paid more attention. A boy that, like Obi-Wan, will need to find his own path through life, his own steps through light and dark that might--will--be different from any Yoda has seen before.

A boy that, for right now, needs less guidance and more care. More compassion. More... protection.

It goes against the teachings of the Jedi, to encourage attachments. But Yoda looks at Obi-Wan, feels out for the boy on the other side of the door keeping vigil over his once would-be Master's body, and knows the will of the Force, too.

"Train the boy, you shall," he decrees, and blames the rest of the Council. "A Knight, you are."

Obi-Wan bows his head, like he'd expected nothing less, like he's grateful they're in accord and he won't have to fight for it.

And like he'd never expected a Knighting, a ritual, a ceremony.

Yoda watches him quietly enter the next room, kneel down beside Anakin Skywalker and join the silent vigil. Sees Anakin lean into him, just slightly. Sees Obi-Wan pause, then wrap one arm loosely around small shoulders.

No, he decides, turning his back on what's left of his Lineage. They'll make new dances, a new path, and he won't recognize a single step of it.

And he feels the slightest hint of relief.