Chapter Text
Obi-Wan defeats Anakin and from the lava of Mustafar steps his own personal darkness, wearing golden eyes and a look of pure malice. It follows, stalking him back up the ridge, cape buffering the hot, scorching air. Always in his peripherals, the shadow lurks right at the edge of Obi-Wan’s awareness, black and heavy, watching. It awaits his acknowledgement, methodically tracking his steps through the ruins.
He cannot turn to face it. He won’t.
The droids meet him, R2 hesitates at first, even with Obi-Wan’s motioning but follows after a telling moment. Obi-Wan cannot invite any theories, not that it was beckoned by a familiar gloved hand into returning to the ship, as his real master lays down below, devastated and unrecognizable. Mustafar burns with great suffering and when Obi-Wan boards following C3PO, his skin still stings from the rage incarnate.
The aura around Padme, although weakening, is soothing. She is unharmed, or so she appears, face clean and deceptively tranquil on the pull-out cot. There rumbles a great fury from the ramp, watching as Obi-Wan reaches his hand out, the hands that only just moments ago have done irreversible harm and injury to someone precious to them both. Hands capable of violence, the same kind that has ruined all that they once held so dear. He touches her cool shoulder, feels her life.
She stirs. “Obi-Wan.” She whispers, squinting through her pain, “Is Anakin all right?”
Answer her, Obi-Wan. The shadow mocks, voice dripping with venom, Tell her what you’ve done.
But the Jedi Master only softly caresses her face, lulling her back to rest. He closes his eyes for a long moment. It threatens to become a wave, one great wave to swallow everything whole. Younglings sleeping eternally in the Jedi Temple, the flower petals of their once great order, cold faces eerily peaceful in the moonlight of the night of collapse. His allies, dare he say his companions, scattered to space, distant dying stars that he cannot revive, only able to watch as they go out one by one in agony. He should shield his heart, remember his duty, find peace despite the fire, but Obi-Wan opens his eyes from meditative distance.
He had spoken it into reality, his love, his tragic double-sided sword, too strong not to become equally as hateful. Down in the volcanic gravel, he had revealed himself in the roar of the sea of lava where the only other to hear his failure would perish with the knowledge. That he had loved and cherished as his own, and grown bold with expectation, one lifelong and bright. And he hated for how much he loved and wanted repentance.
His hand hovers over the button to lift the ramp. The smell of dying flesh and burnt hair clings to him, an invisible cloak of proof he watched a private execution by fire. Tormented screams ring in his ears magnified by the stark difference in setting, the clean air and quiet walls which banish the thunder of Mustafar and allow Obi-Wan to feel the true weight of what has come to be.
Enduring and irreversible loss. Tears of misery. An unfinished duty.
R2 beeps sadly.
He thinks Mustafar must have burned him as well, fire eating up his insides, a flood of liquid anger tearing down his inner temple to match what has happened to their actual one, the red hot and smoldering planet making its home in his chest, scathing and blistering. It resonates with the presence standing outside his ship, rousing flames wicked from betrayal, evoking the hunger of resentment, wanting for its festering. It is not what he hopes it is, and this wavering is proof of his offense to the Jedi way, a sickening mutation of his own attachment.
Padme trembles, brow pinching. If she knew they are about to leave behind the sole reason she came…
Obi-Wan looks and sees the shadow for what it is. Who it is.
Anakin regards him from the bottom of the ramp, golden red eyes glowing from beneath his hood. His mouth holds anger, accusations and Obi-Wan can only ache to think he might hear those dreaded words again, screamed with all the power left in a dying body.
”I hate you!”
But this Anakin is unmarked from Obi-Wan’s wrath, sinister and whole.
“What are you doing, Master Kenobi?” C3PO asks nervously from the cockpit, “Should we not depart from this dreadful planet as soon as possible?”
And leave Anakin here? Obi-Wan thinks pitifully, brow folding in weakness. Eternal flames, Anakin’s lightsaber attached at his former Master’s hip which would be taking from him even his earned glory and status. Nothing left but ash, torture and loneliness. Obi-Wan frowns, sees all around the hissing red and dark black smoke. This is no place for a Padawan. Not his Padawan, the star in his sky that burned the brightest. Obi-Wan knows though that it is fire that allows a star to prove its distinction.
Burning until the inevitable implosion, all stars have a nature of becoming a black hole that will devour everything in its vicinity.
With a subtle motion, one only his other half could tell, their secret language created from the deepest of trusts, does he test the shadow. Never taking its eyes off the Jedi’s face, the shadow shows a wicked self-satisfaction and begins its slow ascent up the ramp, reassuring Obi-Wan that he could have his punishment and his sick comfort for it too.
They leave behind the reality of what has transpired in the black volcanic gravel, gripping handfuls with wretched and disciplined slowness surviving on mindless hatred and betrayal, vowing in the endless pit of his torture, he will return.
-
As Padme withers beneath the gentle care of medical professionals, Master Yoda and Obi-Wan meditate, overlooking the black quiet of space. The Force rings of great sorrow, a constant feeding of ripple after ripple from death, despair and confusion. They are far from their previous unity, civilization altered, cleansed of harmonious faith, now harnessed by the great hand of one man.
Obi-Wan cannot find solidarity in the Force, bombarded with visions behind his eyelids, falling backward into fire over and over and the presence looming at his back mocks any semblance of calm. It paces, back and forth, long determined strides. Anakin never did hone his patience for meditation-
His inner mind tilts. This thing he has brought back with him is not Anakin. But the truth is not any easier. His ears are roaring, but there is no sound.
The silence at their station is eerie, for it is the calm before a storm.
When Obi-Wan opens his eyes, releasing a long slow breath, he realizes Yoda has been observing him, and it is not with the fond interest of a fellow Master.
Senator Organa ascends the ramp into the high deck. “They are losing her.” He informs them grimly.
A medical droid confirms the news. “We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies.”
The bright lights on Padme’s skin and her white robes create a faint and celestial glow, an environment too technical and gut-wrenching for a young mother. From outside the operation room, the droid’s explanation of the procedure falls away as Obi-Wan watches in captivation the dark shadow, cloaked like the grim reaper, slip through the droids and approach the defenseless Padme laying as if merely asleep. Ever so gently the shadow caresses Padme’s cheek with the back of his knuckles and it makes Obi-Wan swallow against pain. A Sith’s hands are not kind. They do not shield life.
She turns her face to his touch, even though it cannot be real. “Anakin..” She breathes out, and it echoes a hurt that Obi-Wan understands can kill, “Anakin…” And in response he reaches up and lowers the hood, gently bending down to kiss her forehead, soothing the fever and cupping her face. He looks down upon her with fondness and tender affection and Obi-Wan moves to look into the man’s eyes but Yoda draws him from the vision, putting his cane down onto tiled floor. There are only droids, the machines, and Padme’s suffering left.
“Die she will.”
Obi-Wan shakes his head slightly, hand covering his mouth, disbelief thick in his stomach.
The children are born healthy, donned their names and one final message is delivered. Obi-Wan cradles the boy and Padme breathlessly asks for his attention, looking through the glass instead of at him, “Obi-Wan?” He follows her gaze, worried for the unyielding fever is blurring her senses. Luke murmurs when his arms tighten around his small, warm body, two flashes of molten gold smoldering with wretchedness and blame outside the window. The tear tracks are fresh down Anakin’s face, pain and despair, agony and heartbreak etched in his expression, vivid for his affection and all it reflects. His fist booms against the glass, making Obi-Wan flinch and Padme’s breath flutter.
She swallows, gathers her strength. She is the calming still of water after a final droplet of rain. Yoda was right. Mere moments left; the quiet silence of a dying flame is torn wide open. A scream of despair, raw and bleeding, could not have been more horrifying had Obi-Wan not already heard it on Mustafar. How real it sounded, echoing out from his own self-mutilation, imagining an already fallen soul to further torment. To revel in what might have been left in his friend’s humanity. Padme opens her mouth to speak.
“There is good in him.” Her eyes close, she fights drifting but even the words begin to fade, “I know there’s still-“ The figure outside the medbay suddenly looks so small, collapsed and pressed to the glass under the cloak, no longer a menacing grimace of wrath. The emotion swells, excruciating for its power is both devastating and helpless. Nothing can prevent the cycle of life. All Anakin swore to protect, laying his life before it, fighting the tide that he had been warned about over and over. Obi-Wan’s chest aches, years of surviving war, gruesome and violent, haunting their psyches and yet Padme could not be protected here, not by lightsaber, nor righteous anger.
Attachment is forbidden, young one. Release her, back to the Force.
One final heart-wrenching sob, and slowly the cloak empties, and Obi-Wan’s heart skips a beat. It sinks deep inside him. He thinks with great trepidation that the sensation is regret.
Padme’s funeral is an open casket for all those who adored her. She is porcelain, she is stone, beautiful, timeless and with none of the life nor passion she used to radiate that clearly was so intertwined with Anakin. The sky rumbles against the far mountains, clouds thick and dense and just like angry tears of his former Padawan, lightning streaks the sky and sheets of rain break down in a violent display out in the distance. The grief is palpable, and Obi-Wan mourns to think if their duel had not killed Anakin then this tragedy undoubtedly would have.
The singe of skin, first only at the remainder of his legs, those once long confident legs, giving him full understanding of the suffering he is about to endure. For an agonizing moment, even through the affliction of Sith corruption, he pleads for Obi-Wan’s savior before fire swallows up all and sears his face so he can no longer see. It will be horrific and without mercy.
Quickly, like a recoil, a new nervous habit, Obi-Wan looks for the shadow masquerading in the faces. But he is not here. The crowd is full of loyalty from the courageous survivors and open displays of sorrow proving their affection. For those who are allowed to grieve and love openly the rain is gentle, and soothing. For Obi-Wan it makes him think the tears likely stung the raw skin of his friend before all hell erupted. He pinches the bridge of his nose, knowing in many ways they bury Anakin silently beside his lover, except in all ways that matter, no ceremony for the Jedi he was, no acknowledgment of their union to be proud of and celebrate, and no closure that could satisfy a Master’s aching heart.
All is left to the shadow of Mustafar except the lightsaber that proves Anakin was once more than his betrayals, sitting safely and nefariously at Obi-Wan’s hip at all times. When he touches it, he swears the Force reverberates back faintly. But he also feels the tainted murder embedded in its grip, an oath stained in blood that is distinctly now like his own, his weapon that cut Anakin at the knees and took his last hand.
They will decide about the orphaned Skywalker babies. To keep one step ahead of the Empire discovering their deception.
Before entering the room, Obi-Wan breathes, chest hollowed out, ribs empty, like the door to a bird cage left open. Even in his waking hours, memories are at the forefront of his thoughts, exhaustion creeping into his standard day by day. When reassurance is necessary, he holds the lightsaber in his palm, grounding him. Sometimes he cannot tell whether it is his own or Anakin’s which settles his heart, and it agonizes him, the lack of distinction, he and his once ever-capable friend.
The door slides open, revealing the white interior and his allies but Obi-Wan’s eyes first find the third guest, an unseen addition to a private discussion wearing all black like a deep bruise. He taps his fingers slowly on the chair arms, slumped posture still menacing. There is a mirroring exhaustion in his face, prominent in his pale color and dark circles, making the scar over his eye all the more distinct. Knowingly, Anakin looks at Obi-Wan’s grip on his lightsaber, yellowed eyes sliding down then back up, and the cruel and derisive smile enjoys regurgitating his Master’s teachings in rebuke, words mouthed in sadistic satisfaction.
"I thought attachment was forbidden."
Pulse racing, Obi-Wan removes his hand as calmly as possible and moves around the table with Organa and Yoda’s eyes following. He sits in the open chair beside his Jedi ally, and next to the shadow, disturbed by the relief that is rushing over him, indiscriminately put at ease with the familiar presence once again at his side, as it has always been, all these years.
Yoda folds his hands carefully in his lap, weary but calm. “Hidden, safe the children must be kept.” For now, the service to Senator Amidala keeps Naboo in a state of neutrality, Padme providing them one final window for the future, whatever it may be.
Obi-Wan has since changed from the singed robes, dusted with Mustafar and torn from battle, but even in the clean and sweet air of Naboo’s capital, hot iron and melting metal rains hellfire back into his senses. As if able to protest all that has been done in his absence, decided disloyally without him, that gloved set of fingers taps distinctly, pinky to pointer. The moment, the precious exact, that rumbling displeasure tears Obi-Wan away, all his attention honing in involuntarily to the movement at the corner of his eye. Quickly touching his beard, Obi-Wan talks over the noise.
“We must take them somewhere where the Sith will not sense their presence.”
”The Empire will find them. You cannot hide forever.” Anakin says lowly, a terrifying promise, one from the depths of Obi-Wan’s fear and made to be said by a voice he believes as much as his own. Once, Anakin had asked him if he was not on edge, worried, distraught, as they tried to resist the smothering and persistent Separatist Forces. He could not lie to those demanding blue eyes, a truth he had kept quiet from his own former Master during their time together, that at times, when the pressure was at its heaviest and all appeared as ominous as the black of space before an attack, he merely hid his concerns, a victim to the plague of fear only masked by pretending composure. This Anakin sees through everything, piercing, unrelenting, a knife to his most vulnerable parts that require no confessions.
Yoda thinks, closing his eyes, “Hmm.” Through his hundreds of years surrounded by the Force, melding with the spiral of time and spirits both once conscious and above such limitations, he ebbs and flows too.
Anakin leans in, “Master Yoda knows it as well. You are only delaying the inevitable.” A whisper just as he used to during Council meetings, bending to Obi-Wan’s ear knowing not to speak out of turn but refusing to stay silent. Now Obi-Wan’s fingers itch to tap on the table’s surface, where he both wants to scold the mirage of his greatest security and trust him for all the times he dismissed the wisdom of a young and brilliant mind more in tune with the Force than his peers could ever hope for.
“Split up they should be.” Yoda says. To wane their connections, ease any possibility of building off one another, ignorance a kind of bliss and still yet a lonely privilege. Obi-Wan’s brow creases, thinking of how proud and lovingly Padme had once looked over her children in her weak arms, before her strength faded. Yoda is a gentle but firm leader. Their mother’s arms are forever lost. It is decided.
Organa offers to take Leia, sealing their destiny of separation, promising her love and home and comfort, a place in plain sight but secure. The children will now walk different paths, unaware of how much bravery persisted in providing them stability. Panic strikes him, Padme buried and Leia bestowed a new name on another planet, all that remains of Anakin’s succession is one final choice.
“What of the boy?” Obi-Wan asks.
Yoda nods very slowly, but his eyes are straightforward, “To Tatooine.” He grants, “To his family send him.”
Beneath the hood, a distance almost fades the glaring shine of gold, softening the color and Anakin regards Obi-Wan’s momentary attention with a barbed glance. A father’s footsteps, his name, those who could speak of all they once had, Obi-Wan had held Luke in his arms, felt his heartbeat, and a vibrant, honest Force signature, the one they would allow to carry the Skywalker legacy. From the child won out of slavery to an esteemed General of the Republic, Qui-Gon’s chosen Padawan and Obi-Wan’s strongest ally, Mustafar could not burn away Luke Skywalker’s bridge to his father’s humble beginnings. Not all will be erased in their failings after all.
He cannot resist, compelled by an emotion he knows must not be acted upon. When he called Anakin back time after time, stressing their obligation to the universe and not just the few they personally claimed as dear, Obi-Wan had been denying how wounded he was himself. If there had been one guarantee in all their loss, it was that Anakin would always persevere, stronger than any Jedi yet, invincible and empowering. His own partiality had helped cause their downfall; him believing Anakin could never be overcome by their enemies, expecting infallibility even with all their causalities because of his skill, now his own blindness wounds him with irony, he being the one to cut his almighty ally down, their weakness that of heart and not of power. Every death chipped away at their soundness, a trained warrior with despair ingrained in his movements, aghast to think all he protected would still slip through his fingers even after giving everything to the Order. Anakin watches him, awaiting his decision to walk away or to stay and Obi-Wan intertwines his destiny once more with a Skywalker, “I will take the child and watch over him.”
Yoda accepts, one to each child, and although Organa is not a Jedi, he is saddled with the duty of their collapsed Order. “Until the time is right, disappear we will.” To shed their titles, openly carrying their lightsabers, they bow, agreeing to silence their voices but not their hope.
Yoda stops Obi-Wan before he can prepare for the journey to the Outer Rim.
“Master Kenobi,” He says, indicating back to the chair, “Wait a moment.”
Carefully Obi-Wan lowers himself back into his seat, Anakin standing at his shoulder, robes and company so tangible, the shadow has completely integrated itself into his perception of his former Padawan, even down to the soft sigh from his nose at a conversation elongating. Feeding it, the final thread of a training bond between Master and Padawan that should have been severed, Obi-Wan guiltily soothes his tattered heart with the consistency he once took for granted, an invariable truth now merely an illusion, allowing it strength from his weakness. He will endure darkness if it is Anakin’s (even if it is no more than a false echo of all that once was.)
Yoda shows no obvious signs of what he is thinking, too experienced for small tells. For the price of visions and premonitions, he is tasked with constant monitoring, the cost of knowledge being the practice of its divulgence and timing. “In your… solitude on Tatooine,” Yoda says, and his hesitation is clear even to an untrained ear, “training I have for you.”
“Training?” Obi-Wan echoes, taken by surprise, for not since long before the war had he been given any sense of Yoda’s masterhood over him. The eyes that look upon him know a greater sadness than can be put to words, for every darkened star that was once a Jedi has made its blow to Yoda’s soul, connected across the invisible sea. The remaining are few in number, they are injured and their truths have been questioned to the marrow of the Order’s bones. Yoda pulls in the Jedi he still has left, and hopes he can keep their hearts strong, their grand Master and aged caretaker.
“An old friend has learned the path to immortality.” Yoda reveals, quietly resting his all-seeing eyes, “One who has returned during this dire time from the netherworld of the Force. Granted purpose, he has been.”
Anakin’s gloved hand grips the back of Obi-Wan’s chair, listening intently.
“Your old Master.” Yoda speaks his identity, a man from what feels a lifetime ago, when wisdom was all around, war was a distant concept and Obi-Wan’s neck tickled pleasantly from a carefully tied braid. The seat creaks as if the very mention of the man provokes anger in Anakin, his hand tightening in protest.
“Qui-Gon!” Obi-Wan’s voice falls to a hushed secret, heart racing against his throat, almost physically forced from his chair from an enraged objection behind him, “Everything is taken from me and the Force returns him to you?” Anakin roars, voice cutting, harsh with a layered sense of treachery, “Do Jedi cheat everything, even death?” This dangerous temperament pressures Obi-Wan’s entire focus as if his former Padawan stands on the edge of their universe, pulling from them all that is to their bond, all that is meant for an apprentice and more, every word a guilty needle in his master’s heart, “Answer me! Were those lectures about accepting the end of things mere lies? All that hypocrisy about keeping the balance and respecting the Force as it plays favorites? Master!” Anakin demands sharply, threatening to take that same leap into the thick inky black of despair and helplessness, revisit his Fall and with his grip on Obi-Wan, take him under with him, like weights on his ankles.
On top of the table, as calmly as he can, Obi-Wan grips his hand into a fist, willing himself a sense of control. The room quivers like aftershocks of an earthquake, although he cannot tell if they are real or merely his inability to restrain the flow of power into the shadow revealing itself in an uncertain reality all his own sinful making. He tries to seal it away, return the cool curtain of the Force to his inner mind but to smother the hot against the back of his neck would be like eclipsing his sun. He wavers. This is their pattern, thriving off the brightness of Anakin’s unrestricted heart until they both get burned.
“Is it not the Jedi way to reduce misfortune? If he is allowed life again, tell me why Padme cannot be returned from the Force? Why must she have suffered?”
Obi-Wan closes his eyes, the sting of charred air back in his vision. Creaking metal, a shriek of collapse, his unstable footing. He had tried desperately to reason with the rage, but in his own disappointment, so thick it curdled his stomach, there was impatience. Such intolerance, blinded by his own trauma, the final defense with Mace Windu gone, he wielded his lightsaber with the intention of taking penance, because, without the Negotiator, the Order was truly lost, put in its grave by their very Chosen One. But he had not been not aiming for negotiation with his former Padawan and that was one of his gravest mistakes.
No, He speaks to the shadow, hurting as deeply as he is about to hurt, but equally unable to scold the passion turned vehemence, The Force did not cause Padme’s suffering… You did, young one.
The agony is almost too much to bear, no more such an outside force but all bleeding out from within. “No.” Anakin denies, breathing. “I loved her. I protected her. Everything I did-”
Your Fall and your subsequent actions were too much for her to bear. You-
“No!” It is wailed, screamed, from the depths of a shattering soul, and for a brief second, so brief Obi-Wan believes himself momentarily killed, he watches the room crumple like in the hand of a clenching fist, shattering all the lights and smothering them, a reaction in the Force to its child’s greatest torment, to understand his action caused what he strove with all his might to prevent, and his isolation down the long winding path of corruption.
Opening his eyes, returning to the world before him, Obi-Wan feels as if a great amount of time has passed. Depletion sinks beneath his eyes, all movement slow, heavier than Force fatigue and more penetrating.
Yoda’s patience trails Obi-Wan’s vanishing and returning, his own eyes coming open almost at equal timing. He does not move, does not extend any unnecessary energy. But the underlying forlorn tone of his voice proves the situation they find themselves in and their present states inconsolable and flittering between the still bleeding losses of just yesterday and their unclear future.
“How to commune with Qui-Gon I will teach you.” Yoda promises, a final lesson, before they will be separated possibly forever, willingly letting go of all they once held with such normalized pride and familiarity, watching it take their former world with it.
The Republic is gone, Yoda’s cherished younglings are laying in eternal rest and he only has one final beacon of possible hope to offer his unsteady ally, of whose treacherous path he cannot walk alongside him for, a personal journey against his own devastated heart, one that no man can take for another when they face their own actions.
Obi-Wan will be alone and yet not alone, Yoda foresees this, so he offers him the chance for a different companion. All will rest on what choice he will make in the desert solitude. Whether to cling to their past with poisonous attachment disguised as justified atonement, lashing his own back with a mirage of all they once had or to embrace the compassion of forgiveness for their flaws, all of them warped by war, he will be provided a choice. If he allows himself understanding, he must be willing also to watch open wounds turn to fading scars just like his memories, even at the cost of letting go of what once made him who he was and is and no longer can be.
“Come with me, young one.” Yoda says, allowing the man before him one thing forever, at one time his youngling and still always his, no matter how many years pass.
-
Holding Luke bundled in his arms, Obi-Wan is washed in glowing Force, a barrier so gentle and reassuring he can tell there has been infused in the momentary togetherness a great love in the child from his parents. It keeps the dark back, shielding them in glorious anticipation for what is to come, that fearlessness that is so true in youth and fostered by a strong heart, if it manages to grow without restriction.
Luke slumbering peacefully, they comfort one another as they return to beginnings, back to the endless dunes of the planet furthest from the middle of the galaxy, a lonely outlier in the Outer Rim with two suns and a unique Force signature melded from its vicious natural wildlife and equally as cunning cities of people. Tatooine hides and wanes life, from a distance merely a heated blaze of bleached colors, the open skull of the desert welcoming fresh things to dry out on its surface unless smart enough to understand its secrets.
There is much to be rediscovered here, beneath the sands of figurative time that Obi-Wan had left long ago when they and a newly acclaimed youngling said goodbye to a mother and a way of life never returned to. Within him rolls great waves of muted sadness for everything that rises to greet their arriving transport echoes of Anakin, a stretch of track surrounded by empty stands for podracing quiet in the falling glow of settling dusk so opposite to when just a child championed the competition and won back his freedom. Surrounded by glory and life, the boy’s leap of unbridled joy in the hot desert sun seems picturesque now, him standing on the top of the world ready to jump right into the stars unaware the higher the distance, the further the fall.
It was a victory he himself had not immediately shared with the boy, stung by his Master’s intentions to train Anakin and thus abruptly end his apprenticeship but eventually by sincerity grown from a promise made and curiosity, a freshly Knighted Obi-Wan had watched holo-clips capturing a moment in podracing history. They were memories he was not a part of, and his heart ached to see how proud his former Master was, hand clasped firmly on a small shoulder, vibrant in the falling confetti. He too would know such a wondrous and all-encompassing pride for their Chosen One.
Mos Espa glows faintly from beneath domes and low structures, a spaceport always buzzing with activity no matter the time of day or night. The wind of streets unknown to Obi-Wan are left with traces of Anakin’s presence fading. He does not know exactly where they had lived, he and his mother, when they served Watto, but his eyes dance over the tops of buildings and try to imagine a childhood between the harsh reality of a gangster planet out of the reach of the distant Republic, crafted from droids, a mother’s love and the exciting low-spoken stories of far traveled strangers.
The moisture farms are spread across flat expanses of land, purpling in the falling dual suns, shadows of farmers moving in poignantly lonely ways only twilight brings. Soaring over the Jundland Wastes, they leave behind the nearest neighbors and drift down toward two farmers looking up at the sky, destiny arriving for them, warm in a Jedi’s arms.
Owen and Beru Lars, the remaining couple of the Lars farm approach the landed transport, arms around each other for support, anticipation evident in their stances. The long day shows in their dusty clothes, their worn hands, but Beru’s eyes shine with a living compassion ageless and strong.
A journey together coming to a swift end, Obi-Wan descends the ramp and Beru steps forward. Their hair rustles in the takeoff of the ship, a paid obligation finished. She beams with unbridled joy at him and Luke, ready to receive the wrapped baby and caress his smooth cheeks with a tender and loving finger. It is not without a certain swallowed agony that Obi-Wan releases the child and he glances into the knowing and stern gaze of Owen, eyebrows lowered. His wife rejoins him, showing him with an immediate pride the face of a cherished gift.
Owen hesitates to take his eyes off the Jedi, glowering against the red glow of sky on his face. But Luke stirs and it draws him in, and he unfurls, a momentary blossom of parental awe. He tucks the blanket in with gruesome care, privately admiring a strong and healthy baby, subconsciously releasing into the Force deep and rooted worries that pass through Obi-Wan like cold ghosts.
“He will have his father’s name.” Owen promises gravely. His hands are tight by his sides and his stare burns with determination, to do his half-brother a justice he does not think the Order delivered upon, to honor a memory of a lost half-family whose name he himself cannot carry.
“But he will be loved as our own.” Beru smiles still, glancing to the deliverer, before her gaze is filled once more with Luke.
Obi-Wan has many things that must be said, discussions of their predetermined future, duty and of the danger they are in. But the words are tight in his throat. To shield his rapidly cooling arms, he slips his hands into his sleeves, battling a mounting trepidation for this parting. The sinking blue loneliness of the surrounding Dune Sea awaits his isolation, hauntingly quiet.
“One day,” He begins and Owen’s eyes steel, a sudden arm around Beru tightening. The scars of losing family have altered his very expression, a hardness that can never be worn back to innocent receptiveness, a stone to the sea, where unnecessary suffering has created weight in his heart that cannot be cut away. He is untrusting, protective and has openly mourned a brother who could not be saved from that sickening fate he knows the Jedi before him will speak of for that very brother’s orphaned son.
“He will need to be trained.” Obi-Wan forces out, uncomfortable with the accusations in Owen’s eyes that are so clear they could lash out and strike. “He is gifted, like his father-“
“I’m not promising a child to the fate of a soldier.” The man says with clear restraint.
Obi-Wan reserves the clarification that Jedi are not soldiers because, to the common person, maybe that is what they have become. Tools of war, practicing violence in the name of politically defined peace. He nods slightly, “I will make certain you stay safe.” He offers instead, which does nothing to appease the farmer’s offense, fury carved in the descending shadows, a phoenix of wrath to force back the other more harrowing emotions.
“Like you all kept Anakin safe?” He demands, and Obi-Wan inwardly flinches, the name too raw, and begs it not be spoken again as if it could be an incantation for his own afflictions. It is too late now to realize Owen does not have the tragedy of the Skywalkers neatly organized, it is the whirlwind of rising and falling grief, swelling to great, unimaginable heights, only to recede during the times of good distraction. The arrival of a Jedi he knew only by name and word of mouth to deliver his step-brother’s son with nothing else, not even a keepsake to show a once great man lived, nothing to be made a memorial, tests Owen’s self-composure. “We can’t even bury Anakin and you want me to agree you can have his son when you deem him ready? I know you Jedi took him when he was just a boy! Your offer of safety is paid for by someone else’s sacrifice! Anakin had a family!”
“You were my brother, Anakin.”
In the brevity of their final moments, Obi-Wan had been unable to tell if it was the debilitating frustration of defeat or the turmoil of bone deep regret in those golden eyes staring at him so harshly from the gravel. He hears footsteps on the sand. He cannot voice his entitlement, that he too lost family, a great, great many family, and with them the essence of his place of being.
“If you should need me,” He says, and the words are far away, spoken out of reflex, “I will be here.” It is what is expected of a Jedi, tranquil, detached attendance, calm mediation in the face of challenge, but he is hollow, and worries what might fill him should serenity continue to evade him. The footsteps are louder. A siege on the Temple-
“Goodbye.”
He is almost a dark shape in their evening when Beru calls after him, “Obi-Wan!” She follows at a slow, careful jog, gently supporting Luke’s head. There is a fleeting instinct to scour the scenery, search for what is giving him such a sense of unease but then he meets Beru’s eyes and releases the tension back into the Force.
She stares at him and sees him. The last to see him for who he was, he can no longer be in the Empire. A small well of emotion breaches, an oasis in their desert of a climate, “Thank you.” She says, for to her they have been bestowed a great happiness. Her gratitude is real, palpable even, and Obi-Wan knows with no comfort to his own hurts that Luke will be taken care of to their best abilities. She will carry his secret too.
“You must call me Ben from now on.” He replies softly.
As if to answer this, one of Luke’s small hands reaches out of the blankets to grab and swear oath to this in exchange for the given family. They share the moment, a tender chuckle before Obi-Wan must lift his hood and depart, glancing back to the waving form of an aunt and watching uncle gifted by a now lost father.
Overhead the largest of Tatooine’s moons glows milky white light for a path, a chilled kindness in the deceptively quiet surroundings, hostility lurking in the bluest shadows just out of sight. Wind whispers over grains, hardly even a pulse riding on her thin cutting blades of air. His cheeks go cold.
A sigh breaks the formed pattern of carefully weighing steps through sinking sand.
“Why didn’t you ask Owen to at least take you into town? It is not safe at night.”
Obi-Wan’s brow pinches but he says nothing, thoughts forming and becoming sentences that are being spoken before he has the awareness to contemplate their true meanings.
“You put yourself at risk. On purpose.”
He almost shakes his head, but instead, he rights his hood and continues walking, taking in a calming breath to ascend a small swell of a hill. Yawning forever sweeps out before him, although to those who navigate the Dune Sea for their livelihood, it must weave paths visible only by experience. His footsteps follow in a telling path straight to his person, a solitary set.
“You are inviting danger. The transport would have returned you to the Port had you merely spared the expense-“
“Enough, Anakin!” Obi-Wan interrupts, turning over a shoulder, “I can handle myself!”
Not even the frost of the cruelest temperatures of Tatooine’s nights could have equaled the flash of ice in his veins. Obi-Wan freezes in place and slowly covers his traitorous mouth. In the seemingly empty surroundings, a cry rings out, shrill but not without menace, a threat. He waits several sharp and penetrating thuds of his heart before he whirls around and faces the empty distance that at one point could be connected back to the Lars farm. Exchanging words with ghosts, tempting the Force with the long uncut string of attachment.
The danger in being alone is not the obvious predators roaming the land for opportunity.
Mottled shadows softened by faint hazes of light bring a great wave of relief. The energy is weary here but Obi-Wan is thankful for it, unfamiliar and steady, if a little worn around the edges. The people of Anchorhead make this pattern, slumbering beneath the stars, true to the living Force. He does not lower his hood, avoiding prolonged eye contact with an innkeeper’s mild, searching once over as he pays for a room but merely the basic contact is worthy of a wanted Jedi’s gratitude, simple and plainly real.
Ascending to the second floor with its arched ceiling and windows, Obi-Wan is met by moonlight once more, breaking apart the shadows of a sleeping world. She is a private audience for a lonely night, asking of a certain melancholic state of mind that seeps from men’s hearts at such hours. Obi-Wan turns his back and steps into his room, clarity striking him in its chasteness. Tatooine is a blend of technology and convention, a meld of the most unique ships across the galaxy passing through its ports to the weathered tents of its Sand People, warmed by fire and crafted by generational knowledge unchanged for centuries. Nothing in this room speaks of nuanced political battles with public life riding on every other word in the figurative center of all those who manage galactic society or grim battle tactics that deem loss in weighing life as numbers and for the physical separation from all that ruined them, Obi-Wan breathes a little easier.
The bedroll is hard but the exhaustion harbors sleep.
He does not realize what awaits him in the grip of his subconscious, tortured by the hateful sear of eyes on him, gold and sharp and intense but even as his hand begs to grab his lightsaber, he is paralyzed; Just as he left his friend in the harsh gravel of Mustafar, his unlistening body is without the limbs to pull himself from his own destruction, watching in stifled horror as coy flames light themselves at the end of the bedroll, dancing in playful intimidation.
“Would you like to know what burning alive feels like, Obi-Wan?”
Devouring the blankets around his legs, the fire grows.
“It is not a torture I could describe by mere words.” Obi-Wan’s vision meets white the fire is so close and hot, blazing with such ferocity all the nerves and veins behind his eyes are visible. “Maybe too inhumane for my worst enemy but for you, my Master, I reserve the same cruelty you showed me.”
Daylight awakens him with a weary gasp, bright and hot on his face. The still-tied window curtain explains why the room has grown warm and dry. He sighs, and rests his eyes a moment. Residual emotions so ferocious they feed on him and make him forget there is no Anakin here to speak such caustic condemnation leaves his heart reeling. There was a time he preached necessary distinction in dream reading. Now he realizes how ruthless nightmares can be, cutting deep, a harrowing blood-curdling scream of pure pain still faint in the back of his mind. When he had apprenticed to Qui-Gon he had been peacefully ignorant and bold in his opinions about foresight, how easily emotions tainted the mind and created visions merely interpreted as more than illusion. But only by experience could he understand the rising distress, the life that lived within him, too real to be called just ‘illusion.’
It was not the first night he has slept alone but it is distinct in his history, no Master, no other Jedi and no Padawan to tether him. Already years have passed since Anakin had earned his title and Mastered another but upon waking to the harrowing reality of the Empire and a fallen Order, the loss of that familiar back laying in a mirroring cot demands a little more of Obi-Wan’s Jedi-earned discipline than he expected. Within is a dark hole, expanding from the center of everything, swirling, swirling, hungry and blind. He thinks it may the place where Anakin’s bright star once burned bright.
Fully awake, dreams cast back into the ethers, Obi-Wan meditates in a warm, sunny spot to soak in the moment. Tatooine, the ancient ocean, in its depths are a great many things, fantastic prehistoric fish and beasts of the water. The people now walk its floors scattered with fossils, traveling the backbones of whales whose evolution allows their descendants to roam the starkly opposite landscape of their ancestors and persist despite the opposing climate. If he can sink deep enough, the timeless signature of this world will speak to him, but in his mind’s eye, from a bundle of blankets, Luke’s hand reaches out, offspring of a similar situation as Tibidon sand whales, born at the death of an era that created his family and with his unique inheritance that will hopefully allow him to survive. Attention warped on its axis, Obi-Wan’s brow begins to pinch. His chest aches like a phantom limb, anxiety mounting swiftly. The Force ripples and instead of answering, he rises to pull his robes on.
News to the Outer Rim does not travel the same, moving on its own timeline in its own methods. The Republic had no claim to the rule of the Hutts here and what the Empire will do is yet to be seen. To prevent premature discovery and to protect the stability of a budding childhood, careful and proficient monitoring will be necessary. What runs through word of mouth will reveal what is to come.
Stroking his beard, Obi-Wan wanders the morning market in an aimless manner, shadowed by his hood and his distracted thoughts. There is little talk of far away politics. Anchorhead barters, smokes and pack animals sway slowly behind their owners. Away from the Hutts palace, exchange is simple, item for item, kindness for future repayment and there is a sense of community unlike the anonymity of a spaceport. A child beams at the offering of a sample of bread from an outdoor food cart, tasting carefully with sparkling eyes.
Anakin had always been extraordinarily curious in a similarly ageless and charming way. Spending his childhood dreaming of all that the galaxy had to offer, he invited new experiences openly without fear, naturally drawing conversation out of the locals with his sincerity. They were generous and caring for his interest, wanting to share for it was wanting to be seen. He would then, in their unspoken unity, drift back to his place at his Master’s side before Obi-Wan walked too far, smiling coyly, ready to share his discoveries with an innocent delight that persevered well into his older years.
Sighing, Obi-Wan chastises himself. He must stop looking for the past in the present. Even in the seemingly undisturbed surroundings, no longer are they in the age of Republic peace. But still his eyes drift, a fruit stand calling customers forward with talk of otherworldly flavors. Anakin would be drawn to such descriptions.
Any moment, long strides would return his Padawan to him, hands full of his portion and always his Master’s as well-
Icy lightning bolts through him. He stops on the beaten road, staggered by his shameless evocation of the murderer of Jedi innocence, both his own and many others’. It stands in the crowd, people blurring past him, raging yellowed eyes under the shadow of a similar hood. His expression is sick with fury.
“You can’t be here.” Obi-Wan says under his breath and the Force ripples dangerously, echoing off.
“You call me to forsake me?”
He squeezes his eyes shut tightly. Wills it to go away. It waits. He waits. Anakin is the screaming agony of eternity, their decisions scarred into the Force’s imprint of time.
“Your senseless reminiscing of the past wears on my nerves, Obi-Wan. You who could watch me burn and think you do not harbor the darkness that I use as my strength now.”
Denial is in his throat, heavy.
“You cannot deny me. I am your creation. Eternally, even when I am the most depraved and evil thing in this universe, I reflect you and your failed Council. Face me, face the completion of your own design!” A noise Obi-Wan knows all too well cuts air, the activation of a lightsaber.
Heart racing, Obi-Wan quickly touches at his belt, Anakin’s and his saber still hanging side by side. He dreads the implication, the final streak of blue replaced by Sith red. The public blocks his view as he searches for a gleam of crimson fury. It streaks the air, Anakin rolling his wrist, wrenching his former Master’s heart, to have to witness that familiar custom that used to couple a cocked and brilliant smile now used as an active threat, the symbiotic relationship of saber and wielder menacing.
“Draw your weapon.”
Someone bumps his shoulder, breaks the moment, and apologizes offhandedly.
Obi-wan quickly retreats from the severe voice of a Sith’s wrath, “Obi-Wan!” the air warping around him like a plume of a chasing volcanic cloud preparing for an eruption.
A compulsion grips him, constant surveillance for a hooded figure through the collage of unknown faces, only one he knows and the only one that should not be here. He worries it will continue to grow, continue to sap power from its sources and soon be able to change reality. The innocent around him are at risk, his Sith-infected mind addled with the horrors of a massacre he had been unable to prevent despite his position. For a momentary peace, he follows his sense of enhanced direction back into the Dune Sea, away from Anchorhead and toward a farm with a tranquil family of three.
A glimpse, he tells himself, of proof of Anakin’s heart, a possession he once assumed everlasting.
But his shadow is not so forgiving as to let him take the journey without him.