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“We’re going the wrong way,” little Jedi Knight Jon Antilles whispered to Obi-Wan as Kenobi served him breakfast.
Kenobi stared at the child, just old enough to have passed a Mandalorian verd’goten , or become a Padawan for any sane member of the Order, anyone beyond the demagolka who had raised Jon.
“Is the Force telling you that?”
Jon nodded slightly. His index fingers twitched, crossing.
“Where are we meant to be going?” Master Kenobi asked gently. He had already learned in their very brief acquaintance that gentleness worked best with Jon. It unnerved him, obviously, but he also blossomed under it.
Jon handed over the datapad he’d been given by Jaster’s squad for learning Mando’a, Mandalorian culture, and other useful modules.
Obi-Wan looked at the astronav map on the datapad. The coordinates weren’t of anywhere in particular. Four sectors away, in the outer rim from where they’d been. But they had been taking the more direct route back to Mandalore.
“Do you have any sense what we’ll find when we get there?” Kenobi asked, again, gently.
Jon shook his head, and also did the Twi’lek sign for no with his index fingers, the tips of his fingers pushing away from each other laterally.
Kenobi nodded. “Good job listening, Jon. Well done.”
The little boy almost smiled. His eyes got wider.
“Drink all of your milk, please, and no skimping on your food. We’ll have plenty of training and meditating today. You’re still a growing boy, Knight Antilles.” At the little scowl on his face, Jedi Master Kenobi leaned down and conspiratorially whispered, “And so am I,” before walking away.
It was true.
His body thought it was seventeen, after all, even if his mind was absolutely certain he’d been alive and mostly awake for seven hundred seventeen years.
The Mand’alor’s corvette could house eighteen verde in the bunkrooms, and there were some private rooms, besides. Obi-Wan and Jaster were in the largest of the private rooms. Master Tholme, Mij, and Silas were in the other three private rooms. The other four adult Haat’ade split two bunk rooms between them for space, and the four children shared the remaining bunkroom.
Not that Jango Fett was technically a child.
He was fourteen. He’d passed his verd’goten, and this was his fifth mission with his father since that coming of age ritual . Obi-Wan had noticed that his father and the rest of the squad were all still quite protective of him. As a fourteen year old warrior, he would never get the difficult, strenuous, or deeply violent roles. And yet he was trusted to be able to handle such a role, supported by others, in an emergency. And this fifth mission was meant to be a simple one, but of course it had drawn on and on and been quite multi-phasic, included quite a bit of guard duty and one very notable and successful sith hunt.
When Jango turned fifteen in another half year, he was due to form his own squad and start putting some of his leadership training into effect. He was a good fighter, even if he hadn’t nearly grown into his own body yet. He had excellent aim, a head for tactics, if not strategy, and he was a vicious little thing in a blood match, according to his father.
And when a Mandalorian called someone vicious… they’re vicious.
Nor was Jon Antilles technically a child.
He was thirteen. And a fully trained Knight who, according to his master, had passed all five of the knighthood trials. He’d shared those trials in meditation with Kenobi and Tholme and both had to meditate again just a little later, only with each other, to come to terms with what his master had him do.
His Trial of the Flesh was to be caught by slavers, then break up that portion of the slave ring. He had.
Comparatively speaking, Quinlan Vos, Tholme’s eleven year old Kiffar chaos gremlin, and Shana Turila, Kenobi’s own precocious eleven year old Twi’lek filled with shameless sass, were wide-eyed padawan innocents.
Jango, at least, could easily dissolve into giggles. His childhood was not completely gone, and his father could still haul him into a hug and he would melt into it.
Jon… needed healing. Of all sorts. It was like he was a broken forty year old stuffed into a prepubescent body.
He and Tholme were working on it.
But honestly, it did feel in many ways like Obi-Wan had just taken on a second padawan who was highly competent and extremely autonomous. Tholme was in complete agreement, and supported him, besides.
But yes, all the children were sharing the bunkroom and with any luck, Shana, Quinlan, and Jango would also help to heal something in Jon. At least it seemed that way from the tooka pile underneath a blanket fort built between the two lowest bunks that had been their sleeping arrangements the night before.
Obi-Wan had gone to check on them in between rounds with Jaster and they were all quite snoozy, but also all whispering to each other. Possibly they were solving the problems of the galaxy. Children were good like that. It was why Naboo had an upper age limit on their monarchs.
Everything went quiet when he opened the door.
“You all look quite comfortable,” he had remarked, ducking his head down to be able to see underneath their low blanket ceiling. There were more mattresses and pillows then children.
“Yes, Master Kenobi,” they all chorused. All except Jango, who called him O’buir.
“Remember to have respectful boundaries. If someone doesn’t want to be touched, don’t touch them, yes?”
And back came affirmative replies in Basic and Mando’a.
“Goodnight, dear ones. Sleep well.”
“Jate ca!” they all chorused, clearly having rehearsed it. And then all of them, possibly even Jon, dissolved into a tooka pile of giggles and pillows.
Obi-Wan had smiled as he shut the door and went back to Jaster.
Jaster put down his datapad as Obi-Wan walked back through the doors. “Everything alright?”
“Apparently the Force wanted me to witness the most adorable pile of tookas in their perfectly constructed blanket fort. They are, I believe, sharing secrets, solving the problems of the galaxy, and practicing their Mando’a.”
Jaster nodded silently, the look on his face indicating that this was as it should be.
Obi-Wan pulled off his fur robe and the hastily donned boots, tunic, and tights and put the clothes where they belonged for the night cycle. He shivered until he got back underneath the nest of blankets Jaster had made for them.
The deep winter white fur robe helped enormously with the constant overwhelming chill he felt since waking from carbonite, but the moments between the fur robe and Jaster’s shared body heat were, every damn day, shivery, uncomfortable things.
“I have questions,” Jaster rumbled underneath his impersonation of a rather clingy octoped.
Obi-Wan burrowed deeper into Jaster’s neck, sinuously rubbing against his body.
“And no distracting me with sex, cyare.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Obi-Wan protested in pure, unblemished innocence. He really was just trying to warm up. Also, he was enjoying the prospect of regular, high quality sex with his incredibly caring, thoughtful, intelligent, and only occasionally masochistic partner. Never would he call Jaster sadistic; Jaster much preferred when Obi-Wan successfully blocked all the blows aimed his way. The days after their courtship challenge which ended up with Obi-Wan’s jaw broken from the single completely unblocked and not-dodged blow Jaster had managed to land hadn’t included any joy from the man. He had been particularly careful and solicitous, quickly taken him to the healers, taught him the rest of the hand sign he used with his supercommandos, and thereafter radiated deep concern at the oddest moments. Never guilt, interestingly enough, but profound worry, the depths of which had been heretofore unknown in their brief acquaintance.
And when Obi-Wan had referenced the lightsaber burn Jaster had gotten in the same fight - and it was control, indeed, that kept Obi-Wan from accidentally slicing him into pieces at that point in the challenge - all Jaster seemed to feel about it was overwhelming pride and no small amount of lust. And this, despite the fact that the healer had to pick melted pieces of his kute out of the wound.
So, Jaster was masochistic, but very specifically so. And definitely not sadistic. It was, perhaps, a certain sort of culturally prevalent Mandalorian machochism, though Obi-Wan certainly didn’t share it yet and wasn’t sure he’d bring it up for a topic of discussion any time soon.
Still.
He wasn’t intending to derail any conversation with sex with his highly desirable partner, and he hadn’t intended to in the past. It’s just that until they got underway from the Temple, six days ago, they hadn’t had much down time to share for anything other than actual sleep and some short rounds of very vigorous, very welcome, and very satisfying sex. Since hyperspace, they’d had about the same amount of sex and sleep, though thankfully there had been time for other things, too. But all those other things…
Well, they often weren’t alone. And so their conversation didn’t often get particularly deep, and that was something that they had both skirted around the edges of. It felt like every time they could talk, they were stealing time away from sleep to do it.
So, perhaps Obi-Wan did know what Jaster meant, except of course he hadn’t meant to consistently prioritize sex over conversation.
Possibly he had let the prospect of Jaster-given orgasms go to his head, just a bit.
“I’m sure you don’t, Ob’ika.” Jaster’s tone indicated that he didn’t believe he was all that innocent, and upon further reflection, Obi-Wan didn’t blame him.
Possibly his actions could be construed as attempting to wring the most number of orgasms out of Jaster in the least amount of time given.
Efficiency, you know?
I did warn you I was a horny little thing, he considered saying, then decided against it. “I find you overwhelmingly attractive, Jaster Mereel,” he said honestly. “And, I also want to talk with you. What are your questions?”
Jaster sighed and tucked the blankets higher up around Obi-Wan’s back and shoved another pillow into a better position.
“I’ve been reading about the rules of your Order. Among other things, of course. And you’re currently in violation of a lot of them. And you’re still a member of their high council, and working on reforming them. Talk to me about how that’s actually going, and why they haven’t just kicked you out yet?”
“Ah. That.” He sighed. “It’s happening incrementally. Concerning the violations… We are prohibited from wearing our own armor - the Temple Guards wear armor that belongs to the Order, that’s how they get around it - and we’re prohibited from accepting gifts over a certain value and we are doubly prohibited from accepting gifts from a political power, we’re prohibited from marrying without permission, and we’re prohibited from intervening on Republic worlds without Senate approval, and we’re prohibited from traveling to non-Republic worlds without Senate approval or transfer out of the Knight Corps. Yes. There is all of that.”
Obi-Wan snuggled into the fingers that were scratching at his head. If he could purr, he would.
“But there are three essential modifying bits of information that alter the interpretation of those rules for me. One, almost the first thing I did when I came back was to become Mandalorian. Viewed as a culture, rather than an empire with citizenship, there are Order by-laws that take precedence over the Ruusan Reformation agreement which protect my participation in my culture. So I can own and wear armor so long as it came from a Mandalorian Armorer as a part of the Mandalorian culture and religion, to which I am now an adherent. I can accept the armor and all the weapons as a gift from my clan head who is one of the three contested rulers of the Mandalorian Sector because it is part of the Mandalorian culture and religion. I’ve even properly registered each piece, explained its significance to my cultural heritage, and made an end-of-life testamentary disposition for each piece. I mean for it all to return to Clan Mereel, by the way.”
Jaster nodded silently.
“Secondly, I’m a Shadow. Shadows fall under the jurisdiction of the Head of Shadows which are technically not part of the Knight Corps, for all we make the appearance of it. Just like Archivists are either part of ExploriCorps or EduCorps, but not actually part of the Knight Corps. They don’t answer to the High Council, and their movements and activities are not dictated to by the Senate. After all, it was the demilitarized Knight Corps that everyone was worried about actually taking over the Galaxy about a thousand years ago. No one counted on a Senate that would manage to be as corrupt, bloated, and narcissistic as it has turned out to be. The other four branches - Agriculture, Medicine, Education, and Exploration - a thousand years ago were much smaller bodies, with the military taking the bulk of the Order’s time and attention. In fact, they still act as if this is true, but meanwhile the galaxy around everyone has shifted.”
Obi-Wan sighed. It was an ongoing debate that had just recently come to some actual decision making, due to the Mandalorian-guarded meditation sessions just outside the Temple grounds.
But everything was changing, and Obi-Wan sincerely believed that everything was changing for the better. There were things he couldn’t tell Jaster, of course, like the reopening of the Temples at Tython and Ilum. Obi-Wan himself was charged with investigating the Jedi Temple on Mandalore both politically and physically to see if permanent reoccupation could be possible, and other Shadows were being sent to other closed Temples to report on viability.
“So,” Jaster began. “You could leave with me because you’re a Master, or because you’re a Shadow?”
Soon, perhaps, it would be both. For now… “Shadow. And, because I’m also making a cultural pilgrimage with my clan.”
Jaster sighed. “So, anytime you want to come back to Keldabe, it will have to be for cultural reasons? I noticed that the rules of the Order also forbid you from going to war.”
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. The number of Jedi, irrespective of branch, who he personally knew to have gone to war were in the double digits. “At the present time, yes and no. In the future, there will likely be more reasons. Will I always need to give a reason to my movements? Possibly. I don’t know. In truth, I will always at least attempt to follow the will of the Force, and as a Master and a Shadow with a permissive mission, that will largely be enough.” Or it will be, soon.
“Wait, you have a permissive mission? I thought you were on a cultural pilgrimage?”
Obi-Wan sighed against Jaster’s neck and breathed in his scent. “If I were a shadow with a normal life, I would just slip away and few but my closest friends would even notice. And yes, the permissive mission would give me plenty of time to also rest. The Master of Shadows was abundantly clear that I am not to return for at least a half year.”
“Is your non-normative nature just because you’ve been so visible?”
Obi-Wan snorted. “I think it’s because you’re so visible.”
There was silence for a moment and Obi-Wan lifted his head to look at Jaster in the low light of the night setting. Jaster had an incredulous look on his face.
“No, truly. Mandalorians are not normally found in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Or the one on Corellia, I imagine.”
“You’re Mandalorian,” Jaster reminded him. “You’re a Jedi wandering around in Armor and fur,” he said with even more emphasis. “You just created a new lightsaber form, you’re reforming the Order, and you rediscovered two techniques to make the galaxy a better place!”
Obi-Wan just blinked at him.
“Ob’ika, you’re special!” Jaster grated out.
“One of the techniques wasn’t lost,” Obi-Wan quietly pointed out.
Jaster groaned in protest, his head thunking back down to the pillows underneath him.
“Can I know what your permissive mission is?” he asked, apparently giving up and returning to the original subject.
“No. I’m sorry.”
Jaster sighed. “I get it. Will you give me a heads up if things are about to get awkward because of your mission? I trust that you wouldn’t actually take a mission you believed to be against the will of the Force, or against at least what you perceive to be our best interest.”
“You trust correctly, and I will. I promise,” Obi-Wan swore.
“So all this means that you got permission to marry me?”
“I did, yes,” Obi-Wan affirmed with a smile. It wasn’t even much of an argument. It was the day after their courting challenge, and all things considered it had been a rather brief period of debate.
‘I am petitioning this council for permission to marry Jaster Mereel.’
‘A surprise, this is not,” Yoda had said.
‘Mandalorian wedding vows, I have reviewed. No conflict do I find,’ Yaddle said, picking up her datapad and sending a copy to all the members of the council. Out of curiosity, Obi-Wan looked as well, and it really was just a copy of the wedding vows.
‘I take issue with this ‘raising warriors’ business,’ Master Mundi had said. Which was rich, as he was the only Jedi on the council who was in fact married.
‘And what is your favorite lightsaber form, Ki?’ Master Tyvokka had roared.
The man with three wives, five children, and a penchant for Niman had promptly shut up.
‘Are we deciding for one councilor, one master, a padawan who was abandoned for seven hundred years, or on the topic of the Mandalorian wedding vows in particular?’
‘Move, I do; Recognize no conflict in Mandalorian Wedding Vows to the Rule of the Order, as we have the form of the Vows before us, this council does,’ Yaddle said, calling the question.
It was seconded, there was no further debate, and was then passed unanimously.
‘Move, I do; Knights, Council permission require, to perform Mandalorian Wedding Vows. Masters trusted, can be, to follow the will of the Force.’
It was also seconded and passed unanimously with no further debate. Obi-Wan wouldn’t have thought it would be - not unanimously, and not without further debate - but it was the phrasing Masters can be trusted to follow the will of the Force that was the most important part, he’d considered.
Masters can be trusted to follow the will of the Force.
That was getting into more and more of their legislation as they passed it. The plan, he knew, was to amend the Order’s by-laws themselves at the next annual meeting of the high council, the council of reassignment, and each council of the corps.
Such a shame that the Knight’s Council had been so completely subsumed by the Senate’s prerogative of their missions, but perhaps that would be changing soon, as well.
The Ruusan Reformation had taken away a huge amount of power of the Masters to follow the will of the Force. The council had already agreed that only health and wellness concerns should bar the way between a Master and where they felt the Force was leading them, and certainly not the Senate.
Ideally, they would be breaking the leash tying them to the Senate and reestablish an active Temple in every sector, with more permissive admittance guidelines, a more active presence of all five corps in every sector, and a more active, dedicated set of Seekers in every Temple, and every Outpost.
It was a massive upheaval and Obi-Wan grinned to think of it. Of course, none of it was anything he could share with Jaster, not yet. But soon, hopefully. Soon.
“So, what’s the third complicating factor? You’re a Mandalorian, and you’re a Shadow. What else?”
Obi-Wan snorted a little. “I seem to be the darling of the council just at present. I mean, people argue with me, but I think waking them all up to how the Temple was manipulating their connection with the Force and their discernment, however well meant it was, I do believe that bought me a lot of leeway, at least for the time being. The Order is changing. There is much they need to do in the galaxy, and before they can do any of it, they really need to take care of themselves, first. Fix their own internal compasses. And they’re working on it.”
“You did all of that,” Jaster said, and Obi-Wan could hear the smile in his low growl.
“You helped, darling.”
The low growl turned to a sound of frustration. “You do not see yourself clearly, Obi-Wan Kenobi of Mereel. There is a difference between being the one who has the difficult conversations and successfully challenges long-held beliefs and the ones who distantly supports efforts. I would know. I’ve done it.”
Obi-Wan hid the scoff. It… but… there was…
“Yes. Thank you. And.” He took a deep breath. “Jaster, do you know how huge, how important it was that they allowed themselves to be guarded by you while meditating? That wasn’t just a contract. If you’d been unscrupulous you could have slapped them all in Force suppressing cuffs and sold them to the Hutts. That was a tremendous display of trust, and they trusted in you.”
Jaster was shaking his head. “No. They trusted in you, Obi-Wan. And you trusted in me.”
“Can’t we just agree to disagree?” Obi-Wan asked, feeling the urge, actually, to distract Jaster with sex.
“No,” Jaster replied flatly. “This is important. This is non-negotiable. You may not believe me, but that doesn’t make me wrong and you right. It is not my subjective opinion, Obi-Wan. It is an objective fact that you are the fulcrum on which the Jedi Order is changing. If you hadn’t woken up from carbonite and done everything you’ve done since then, none of the change would be occurring. Yes, other people are participating. The council has to listen and understand and decide differently. My squad needed to guard them while they meditated off-site. And sure, a lot of change is happening, the Order’s improving outlook on Haat’Mando’ade is certainly one of them. But that’s not because I asked nicely. I’ve asked nicely before, Obi-Wan, and been denied. A lever without a fulcrum is just a stick.”
Obi-Wan breathed deeply and tried to really take on board what Jaster was saying. It just… it felt so strange.
“I’ve been alone for so long,” he finally said. “Truly, profoundly alone. No sentient life but a handful of passing purgills in all those hundreds of years. No Force bonds with others to ground me. And when I tried, I could still stretch out and feel the life in the rest of the galaxy. I could feel the brightness of the uncorrupted Force Sensitives and the darkness of the corrupted ones. I could feel the Force Nexii of various orbiting bodies. But it was all so far away. All I had was my meditation, my thoughts, and in a very general and not wholly comforting way, the Force. I mean, I do feel I spent the time productively and well, but the loneliness and isolation was desolating, at times.”
Jaster rubbed his back underneath the blankets.
“I think lesser people would have just lost their minds,” the large man said quietly.
“I think I might have, at first. But I did have a lifetime - albeit a short one - of meditation training to fall back on. And eventually I did. Not much else to do.”
Jaster held him in the quiet of their room on the ship.
Eventually Obi-Wan spoke again.
“It was a vast, seemingly unending stretch of nothing. I did nothing. I touched no one. I did not eat or speak or breathe. My brain had enough electrical impulse to still maintain consciousness and memory while everything else just… waited.”
Another long stretch of silence.
“And then when I thawed out, I didn’t want to wait anymore. I wonder if perhaps the council just picked up on that. I wasn’t going to wait for them to debate the merits of change. I offered them a single reasonable chance to step on the long road of change. And that was enough for them.”
“And if they hadn’t taken that one chance you offered?” Jaster asked, his voice a very quiet rumble.
“I would have left with you much earlier.”
“And left the Order?” he clarified.
“Mmm. They left me for dead, once. I was content to return the favor.”
Jaster gave an almost soundless laugh. “I’m… relieved.”
“Oh?”
“You give off this… aura. Perfect composure, perfect self-control, perfect… peace and compassion. It’s nice to know you’ve got a vindictive streak like the rest of us.”
Obi-Wan groaned. That was certainly something to bring up to his mind healers, now that Jaster mentioned it. “I didn’t mean it to be vindictive. I just… if it’s truly an immovable object, I’d like to take my unstoppable force elsewhere, you know? If the Order wasn’t interested in changing, I had other things to do. I had a null amount of interest in beating my fists on the blast doors until they were stained red.”
Jaster chuckled and shifted. His lips brushed against Obi-Wan’s. “I like you vindictive,” he whispered.
Obi-Wan sank into the kiss. What Jaster’s tongue was doing against his he could feel racing up his spine, down to his toes, and then blooming right in the center.
Jaster murmured something else against his lips in Mando’a, but Obi-Wan didn’t catch it. Six days practicing Mando’a didn’t help in this instance. Also, Jaster wasn’t speaking particularly clearly.
“Translation please,” he whispered.
Jaster rolled them, first, adjusting blankets as he went. He slotted himself between Obi-Wan’s thighs and then easily slid into his still-juicy core.
Jaster propped himself up on his elbow, his other hand running between Obi-Wan’s thigh and chest.
“My most beautiful beloved,” Jaster groaned softly, pumping slowly into him. “My unstoppable force of heart and soul and everything right in the galaxy.” He ground his hips while Obi-Wan whimpered beneath him, pushing his hips up, his feet firmly planted. “My sweet Obi-Wan Kenobi with your sharp sword and sharper mind. I will know you forever. I will love you without end.”
Gasping, Kenobi kissed him and swallowed Jaster’s mue of surprise when he rolled them and then, after a moment of logistical blanket detangling, rode him hard into the quiet void.
The coordinates Jon had given them were in the outer rim, on the edge of wild space. It was a space station of some sort and since it was off the charts, it was likely a hub of villainous activity.
While they were on a slow approach, a quick conference was held with Jaster, Vhonte, Mij, Jango, Tholme, Jon, and Obi-Wan himself.
The Jedi Masters confirmed that it was certain there were slaves in the station and on most of the ships, and it was likely a hub of if not one, then several slaver rings.
There were easily twenty gunships and small freighters docked.
Clearly, the Force wanted them to do something constructive here. Or, perhaps, destructive. But an entire station? With gunships? And armed light freighters? They only had one corvette, which was heavily armed, but not that heavily.
“It’s easy,” little Jon Antilles said. “I’ve done this before.”
“How did it go down last time?” Jaster asked while everyone else in the room held their breath and stared with mounting horror at the thirteen year old who really needed to have had several more growth spurts before uttering something like that.
“My master teleported directly to here,” he said, pointing to the top of the station. “Secure the bridge and lock all docking rings, close and lock all blast doors. I started here,” he said, pointing, “and teleported directly to the last ship. I killed all the slavers and then circled around to every ship. Master walked through the blast doors and started killing all the slavers level by level. Then we went together through the ships and station to free the slaves and see how many pilots there were. There’s usually enough to get everyone home, if we coordinated to get them all heading to the right regions. Then we broke the safes open, distributed the credits and food to the freed, refueled the ships and unlocked the docking collars. Refuel our own ship, refill on food and credits, see if there are any other stolen goods worth saving, then set the automatic destruction on the space station,” he said.
“Easy,” he confirmed.
Everyone continued to stare at little Jon Antilles.
Who had been half of a two-sentient team that completely destroyed an illicit slaver station.
Who could teleport.
Whose master could walk through walls.
Everyone looked at Tholme and Obi-Wan.
“I can walk from one shadow to another. I’ve never tried it through the vacuum of space, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I can also bring two others with me, though not more than that,” Tholme admitted. “I’d want to practice here on the ship, to make sure the beskar doesn’t inhibit the ability.”
They all looked to Obi-Wan. He raised his hands. “I wasn’t able to practice any of my shadow techniques in carbonite. I know how to walk through walls, but I’m rusty, and I’d rather not practice here.”
“I’ve never tried to teleport with someone,” Knight Antilles said, “but I could try across the cargo bay on the ship, here. I wouldn’t mind backup, if I can have it.”
Jaster quickly laid out the plan, even while Tholme and Jon hurried to the cargo bay to practice their technique. The rest of the Haat’ade were arming themselves from the locked armory.
When both Tholme and Jon confirmed their capacity, their mixed Jedi-Mandalorian strike team mobilized.
Shana finished piloting the ship in, and would remain at comms. There was likely much information to send and process during the mission, and she would be part of that. She would also be on hand to remind Jon of the placement and type of ship he was facing next so he could have a hand in clearly visualizing it, without having to memorize all twenty of them before he left.
Quinlan would be guarding their ship, and it was impressed upon him that if he wandered off to find something more interesting to do, that would be exactly the opening that an overlooked slaver needed to escape with Shana. And while Shana would cut him down, she would need extra therapy with the mind healers afterwards and that would be all Quinlan’s fault. He looked quite determined after that to mind his role, even if it was a little boring.
Jon would take Vhonte with him to clean out each ship.
Tholme would take Mij and Silas to the bridge. Silas would stay, and selectively open blast doors for the third and fourth team while gathering as much information as possible from the systems on the station.
Jaster would lead Obi-Wan and the rest of the Haat’ade out of the docking port and then they would split, the Haat’ade going up toward the bridge with the bulk of the work and Obi-Wan going down to finish the levels they’d missed by docking midway in the station.
No one would be out of contact, as Obi-Wan had an earpiece that connected to his vambrace’s comm, Jon would be with Vhonte, Tholme with Mij, and Shana would be in the cockpit with the ship’s comm system.
It went surprisingly seamlessly, if you didn’t consider the death toll a difficulty.
Quinlan did not wander off. Tholme didn’t lose anyone in shadows. Shana did well, and even started the initial report for Master Yaddle, including the mounds of raw data that Silas had pulled from the system.
Jon, as it turned out, was a little slaver-murder machine and Obi-Wan earmarked a very long meditation session with him afterwards. Vhonte had taken HUD footage. She also very keenly wanted to adopt him, but Jaster was holding her and the rest of the squad at bay.
The only Mandalorian who didn’t seem to want to adopt Jon was Jango, and he was hinting very strongly to both his buire that he would make an awfully good brother.
There were enough pilots from the freed to begin sorting out the logistics of getting everyone home in a timely fashion, but a difference in Jon’s standard Slaver Space Station Liberation Plan was certainly the Mandalorians.
No one might have adopted Jon yet, but three of the six other Haat’ade did take in foundlings who had no home left to return to. Dux, Shyin, and Gwwrn took in three sets of siblings ranging in ages from four to fourteen.
Mij and Silas were in charge of parcelling out food and rations depending on how many freed were in each ship, and what sort of food prep areas each ship boasted. They also stripped the living quarters on the station to make sure the freed had something better than a metal floor to sleep on as they got themselves home. As Vhonte and Jon hadn’t reported any serious injuries for the freed, Mij waited until he and Silas were finished to grab the station’s medical supplies and begin attending to them.
Shana refueled the ship and then went about checking all the rest of the ships, refueling where it was needed before returning to comms.
Vhonte, Jon, and Quinlan broke into the safes and redistributed the credits that were available, after they worked out the logistics of who needed to get to which ship and who the pilots all would be.
(Jon taught Quinlan how to crack safes with the Force. Vhonte agreed that it was an incredibly handy life skill, and praised Jon so much he blushed. And then she told the Haat’ade all about it on internal comms. And then Shana had words all over the mission comm frequency about Jon teaching Quinlan how to crack a safe and not her. It was impossible to reprimand her, as half the Haat’ade were in agreement with her that it did seem like she got shafted in the deal, and the other half were howling with laughter and complimenting Jaster on his mandokarla ade . Obi-Wan couldn’t get a word in edgewise.)
Jaster and Jango were in charge of collecting weapons, ammunition, useful gear, and decent armor.
The new parents worked to settle in their foundlings, get them cleaned up and fed, and Obi-Wan and Tholme ransacked every room and cargo bin in the space station to start collecting ‘useful items’. They also collected all the droids. There were twenty mouse droids that cleaned the station, three astromechs in various states of repair, one deactivated hunter droid, and two protocol droids. Which made a certain amount of sense, because this was a Hutt station.
And a Hutt clearly visited it, at least some times. Oh, in the master suite there were goods to be had.
There was a mythosaur skull, for one thing. (It was massive. It would fit in the cargo space of the corvette without being disassembled, but there was no way to get it to the cargo space without disassembling it.)
There were four full sets of beskar armor.
There was fine jewelry, silk drapes, woven carpets, collections of various things, and a ridiculous amount of luxury goods. There was also a collection of lightsabers, and blue and red holocrons.
Tholme took one look at it all and smirked. “We take it all,” he stated.
“We take it all,” Obi-Wan confirmed.
They had to work quickly, and it was no frivolous use of the Force to use it to roll and fold up items, stowing them in crates as quickly as they could.
Slowly, as others finished their jobs, Tholme and Obi-Wan had more and more help until it was finally all finished, the last of the freed were just going into hyperspace and the corvette was ready to undock as soon as Silas set the stations’s self-destruct.
They travelled in sublight far enough away to make sure the slaver station truly did blow itself up, and then they were off before anyone else arrived.
Obi-Wan had approved of Shana’s initial report to the Master of Shadows and all the Jedi used the time to quietly meditate, though not in the very cramped cargo space.
The corvette felt quite a bit fuller with six extra children and no cargo space to expand into. But still, there was a vast living space, just comfortable because nearly everyone was fine being close with everyone else. And they staggered their calisthenics routines. Each of the four private rooms actually had the standard Mandalorian pit couch, and so provided that those occupants of the rooms invited others in to join them at mealtimes, between that and the main pit couch in the shared living area, there was enough space that no one had to sit at the pull-down dining tables with the uncomfortable jump chairs.
Routines were established, for everything from use of the five sonics, to rotations for cleaning clothes and pit couches, exercising, studying, and for the Jedi, meditating. And playing. There was plenty of playing, and it wasn’t just the children on board, though Jon had to be taught everything but Sabacc. (Which he didn’t see as a game, but an income generation method. It was a fair outlook, but most Jedi believed you could also have fun fleecing someone.)
It was seventeen days back to Mandalore and there were no further detours to be had. By the seventeenth day, the ship was filled with the laughter of children, who at night time could all be found in one of the private room’s pit couches, as Silas had graciously given up the room for the tooka pile of ten snuggly, whispering children.
They still managed to build a blanket fort. It was just more effective and impressive over the pit couch.
“So, are you going to learn how to teleport and all the rest?” Jaster had asked Obi-Wan during their voyage back to the Mandalorian Sector. They were five days into having a mythosaur skull in the cargo hold. Obi-Wan was laying deliciously sprawled out over his beloved who, as it turned out, had such a strong and chiseled body because he did his calisthenics in his heavy beskar armor. Jaster did fifty pull ups every day in full armor. In lieu of being able to actually do jetpack training, all the Haat’ade did ‘flagpoles’, where they held themselves taught and rigid with their arms tucked under them, entirely parallel to the floor that they otherwise did not touch. They did balance nicely on their hands.
This, also, they did in full armor.
It was little wonder they were so effective in hand-to-hand combat. They were all, regardless of species or gender, walls of muscle. Highly trained walls of muscle.
Jedi were generally thin and lithe. Well conditioned, of course, and muscled, naturally. But few and far between were the Jedi who would be considered ‘walls of muscle’. They didn’t need to be. They had the Force.
Yoda didn’t need to be a wall of muscle to catch a capital ship crashing into a planet, and apparently he had done that. Twice.
Obi-Wan would never be a wall of muscle, but teleporting? Shadow walking? Walking through walls? Getting better at wrapping shadows until it was seamless and effortless to maintain?
Absolutely. He needed to train those skills like Jaster did flagpoles and pull ups.
He hummed and snuggled into his lover. “Naturally. It would be very helpful in my work.”
Jaster grunted a little. “What is your work, exactly? When you’re not creating sword forms, recording holocrons, freeing slaves, and hunting sith?”
Obi-Wan hummed again. “Well, I mean. It can be what I want it to be at this point. But I would like to eventually return to the work I was trained for. In some ways. Part of the time, you know. It’s what I’ll be training Shana for.”
“Which is?” Jaster prompted, running a hand up and down Obi-Wan’s cooling back and pulling a blanket over them.
“Researching lost temples, recovering lost artifacts. Adding to the collective knowledge base of the galaxy. Learning more. Teaching others. You know, just the standard things.”
Jaster made a grumbly noise of interest. “Fascinating.”
Then the conversation devolved into the stories of the temples he explored with his Master, until they were both too tired to do anything but sleep.
And Obi-Wan Kenobi slept without dreams, visions, or nightmares. He simply slept.
On day seven out from the mythosaur skull in the cargo bay, all six of the foundlings from the slaver station agreed to be adopted and there was a ship-wide celebration welcoming them into various families, and ultimately all into House Mereel. The adults all drank the hard liquor that Mandalorians favored, and the younger Jedi drank very small amounts, learning (and in Jon’s case practicing) how to filter the alcohol out of their systems before any affects hit them at all.
On day eight out from the mythosaur skull in the cargo bay, Jango brought Jon to speak privately with Jaster. Obi-Wan was informed he could stay, and Shana bullied her way in anyway.
“I am part of this family and lineage, and this is a family-slash-lineage conversation,” she hissed at the two boys. Her lekku were signing something but Obi-Wan hadn’t been studying the language as much as Jango and Jon had.
Jango scowled at her but nodded.
“I adopted Jon. He’s ready to swear the Resol’nare, ” he told his father bluntly.
Obi-Wan couldn’t help it. His jaw sagged open ever-so-slightly.
“You’re almost the same age,” Jaster said. He remained entirely calm. Even his emotions were calm. In fact, he radiated understanding and sympathy.
Mandalorians!
Obi-Wan briefly forgot, in his judgemental haze, that he was one, now.
Jango rolled his eyes. “We’re both adults, Jas’buir. I adopted him into Clan Fett, as a brother. Like you did with O’buir. Except I’m not going to marry him,” Jango pointed out.
“You still planning on courting Myles?”
And who is Myles?
“Yes. And Quinlan. I think he and Myles will really get along.”
Obi-Wan spoke. “You know Padawan Vos won’t be available until he’s a knight, yes?”
Jango nodded sagely.
“So you’re poly, now?” his father asked gamely.
Jango shrugged. “I am for Quin and Myles.”
Jaster nodded, taking it all in stride.
“But not Jon,” Jaster clarified.
“No! Jon’s in love with Shana,” Jango said, throwing them under the speeder.
Obi-Wan’s eyebrow rose as he looked at his brand new Padawan. Who was still eleven, had not yet hit puberty, and was already in the middle of some sort of melodramatic love-polygon. Who was also glaring at her brother. She had just kicked out one of his knees as she hissed, “Spill your own tea, beskar for brains!”
Jaster was desperately trying not to laugh.
Jon was staring at Obi-Wan. “Master said I could never love any single person more than anyone else. But you said I didn’t have to follow Master’s rules when they didn’t make sense. And if you can love the Mand’alor, then I would like someone to love, too. Someone fierce and powerful who can take care of herself. Like Master, but nicer.”
Obi-Wan took a deep breath. He let it out slowly.
“You may not court Shana until she reaches knighthood. She will then be an adult in the eyes of the Jedi Order, and free to make such decisions on her own.”
Jon nodded, and signed at the same time, as did Shana.
“Same rules apply for Quinlan, Jango. Not even courtship until he’s a knight,” Jaster added.
Jango nodded.
Jaster crouched down before the children. “Jon, before you swear the Resol’nare, I want you to think about something. Jango was the last of his clan, but I still adopted him. He’s my child, but he kept his clan. You are an adult, and yet still in many ways a child. I would be honored to adopt you, the brother of my oldest child, and have you remain in Clan Fett. What do you say?”
Jon smiled and it was a sly thing. “Rule number eight: Never go to Mandalore. I accept,” he said, loosening his shields to allow just a little smugness to ease out.
Jaster said the name and soul phrase over Jon Antilles, Clan Fett, and then there was a group hug. Shana curled a lek around Obi-Wan’s neck and Jon whispered the Resol’nare.
I am absolutely claiming this child in my lineage, Obi-Wan considered. And he didn’t at all realize that it was a very Mandalorian thing to do.
“She gave up her name, citing attachment, and refused to let her padawan, whom I am convinced she tortured, to have a name. But then she took on a mysterious pseudonym, which is the most ridiculous case study of attachment I have ever actually heard of.”
Master Ki Adi Mundi spoke next in the council holocomm. “Is this the Dark Woman you’re speaking of, Master Kenobi?”
“Yes. You know of her?”
He nodded. “She was my Master. An’ya Kuro was her given name. But she was not, I think, quite so extreme in her methods when I was her Padawan. I was not knighted early, I do not have a set of rules, she did not set me loose without support on a space station and leave me there, and what injuries I received in the course of my training, she fully healed herself.”
“I have Jon seeing a mind healer,” Obi-Wan said. “When he is ready, I would like to help him make a full written report to this council of his history as a padawan. I do not recommend he stand before you yet. He is, in skills, a fully trained Jedi Knight as Master Tholme and I have attested to. But he is also still a child.”
“A fully trained shadow , Knight Antilles is,” Yaddle said, and Kenobi’s simple long distance comm set up transferred the holo to the active speaker. “Keep him with you, you will?”
Kenobi nodded. “That will be easy enough. Master Tholme and I are cross training with him, and both our padawans are eager to learn the lost skills Master Kuro imparted to him.” It was more complicated than that, of course. Jon was also now a Mandalorian and would likely join Jango’s squad as some sort of Jedi Auxillary when it formed. But still. That would mean that Jon would have backup wherever he went, and so would Jango, and Obi-Wan was very happy with that.
Also, Jon seemed very content to actually live in a family, in a sector and on a planet that was forbidden to him. Actually being an Ad’be’Alor was, admittedly, the largest and most comprehensive e chu ta he could imagine to An’ya Kuro, and Obi-Wan couldn’t see Jon changing his mind any time soon. He would undoubtedly leave for missions, like all Jedi did, but his home base was Keldabe Keep, not the Temple at Coruscant.
The council moved on to other matters. They heard seven mission reports back to back, and in the midst of it, Obi-Wan received a commtext from Master Yaddle requesting an encrypted holocomm within the next two days.
He texted back when the knights and masters were switching off in between reports, setting up a time.
Obi-Wan was determined to pace himself. Not everything needed to happen all at once. He could, in fact, live gently, relax and have fun with his family, and enjoy the post-carbonite life he was building.
Mornings were gentle and lovely. Morning sex with Jaster in their private room in his personal apartments in Keldabe Keep started off the day. Then they made or picked up breakfast for themselves and the children, for which Master Tholme and Padawan Vos always joined them.
Then Jaster had meetings, often, until lunch, and this was a perfect time for a brief morning meditation for all the Jedi, after which the padawans and Jon spent a few hours doing their lessons while Tholme did whatever it was Tholme did and Obi-Wan first sped read through the histories of the galaxy and then the technological advances he’d missed out on. Sometimes Jango joined them and did his own coursework, and sometimes he accompanied his father to meetings.
Lunch was often in the large castle’s refectory and both Tholme and Obi-Wan encouraged the children to spread out and sit often among various Mandalorians, as they did themselves. After lunch they would take a moment to share anything interesting or useful they had learned, and do another short meditation. Then it was shadow training time and they focused first on shadow walking, even while Tholme and Jon practiced sparring while shadow walking, though not all the time and often they supervised Quinlan, Shana, and Obi-Wan’s practice of it.
Then toward the late afternoon it was time for open handed katas, lightsaber practice, Force tag, which Obi-Wan and Tholme would also sometimes play, and when Jaster and Jango were free to also train at the same time, hand-to-hand combat lessons.
Showers happened before dinner, which sometimes Jaster made, and sometimes were brought up from the refectory, and everyone unanimously fell to the food like starving beasts. After dinner they all sat comfortably sprawled in the karyai, playing games or telling stories.
Sometimes there was a mind healer appointment stuck in there. Sometimes there was a trip to the Armorer in there.
By the second week, Shana had the first pieces of her training armor which she had painted bright orange, and Jon had his first piece of beskar armor, a gorget like Obi-Wan’s, which he also painted white. Inspired, perhaps, by the tiny beskar bead with the tiny painted mythosaur skull on it that was dangling on a braid of cloth and secured to a loop in on Shana’s headband, Tholme had also ordered and received a tiny beskar bead to add to Quinlan’s braid to mark his participation in the very successful joint Jedi-Mandalorian sith hunt.
Two weeks into their stay in Keldabe, Jaster arranged for Master Tholme and Padawan Vos to travel to Sundari and speak at length with the leaders of the pacifist movement to do whatever it was he could manage to do there.
Obi-Wan jugged a weekly holocomm with the council, which always took an entire afternoon, a brief call with Yaddle, and a slightly longer call with Jocasta who was pushing him to submit the full reports on the jedi holocron and lightsabers recovered from the Hutt slavers station, and to take the time to work with the sith holocrons. She also wanted a more complete report on Bane’s holocron, and time with it when he returned so she could convince him to narrate an autobiography before any such attempts to free him might begin.
Shana, meanwhile, was sad that Quinlan was gone, and Jon was hiding his feelings on the subject, but not particularly well.
As a bit of a treat, Obi-Wan got permission from Jaster to access the Royal Armory Archives, with the particular intention to find sith lightsabers and redeem them.
As this wasn’t something Jon had ever done, Obi-Wan took the time to explain exactly what was meant to happen and exactly what they would need to do with their shields while they did it.
And then there were the ethical implications.
“Why would we not leave sith lightsabers as they are? As, perhaps, part of the effort to preserve the historical primary sources just as we find them?”
Neither child had a good answer, but it was clear they were thinking very, very hard on the subject.
Obi-Wan explained what sith did to their kyber crystals and other sentient power sources in order to make them intune with themselves.
And how it tortured the sentient objects, who then continued to be in a state of perpetual torture until someone rescued them from it.
Shana looked horrified. Jon looked cynically resigned.
“This is why we also would wish, when we have the capacity to do it, to redeem holocrons and their occupants. Do you see why?”
They both signed yes, and otherwise didn’t move.
“Why?” Obi-Wan prompted.
“Because a holocron is partially made of a kyber crystal,” Shana said.
“And the presence in the crystal would just torture it, if we didn’t heal the presence, too,” Jon added.
“Exactly. Now, any thoughts why we would bother to redeem objects and places that aren’t sentient?”
“Over time, they might affect sentients,” Shana mused.
Obi-Wan nodded silently.
“Collectively they have a multiplying effect, don’t they?” Jon asked.
Obi-Wan nodded silently. Nothing else was forthcoming.
“If a dark artifact was used in a sith ritual, what do you think would happen if it wasn’t dark anymore?”
Shana snorted and Jon smiled predatorily. Obi-Wan nodded.
“If a dark ritual chamber was cleansed entirely, how effective would subsequent dark rituals be, in that chamber?”
A look of dawning realization stole over their faces.
“If a dark artifact or ritual chamber was no longer dark, do you think it would be able to call to anyone and potentially restart an extinguished line of sith?”
Jaws dropped. Obi-Wan smiled.
The conversation with Bane had been incredibly useful. In fact, Bane had proven himself to be well and truly a bane, only this time to the Sith Order.
Darth Flimsi-Cut strikes again!
[TRIGGER WARNING: Bane is a sexual predator, among other things, and he has a conversation with an adult and two children. Skip, if you feel the need, between the lines beginning, “Oh, it’s you again…” and begin reading again at the line beginning, “Thank you for your cooperation…” The skipped material is summarized at the end of the scene.]
Shana was terribly excited about redeeming tortured sith lightsaber power sources. Shana was somewhat less excited about having to write reports to log with the Jedi Archives about the project. But she wasn’t wholly unexcited at the prospect, especially once Obi-Wan gave her a general outline to follow and promised to read and edit her report before it was submitted. It was made even more interesting to her when Obi-Wan promised to meditate with each of the lightsabers and both children to see if he could get any visionary insight on who the owners of the ‘sabers had been. Both children could cross-reference whatever insight was gained to see if they could properly pin down the ownership question.
It’s not that Obi-Wan actually intended to tempt Jon into archive work. It was just a luminescent possibility he wouldn’t deny if it should happen to occur.
After the lightsaber project was fully complete, which took another two weeks of meditation, research, and writing, Obi-Wan decided to get on with the report on Bane’s information.
Which meant he’d need to consult Bane again, and this time with Shana. Jon also asked to participate. Shana’s main role would be to be taking notes on a datapad with a backup comm recording that Jocasta would surely also be interested in. There would be a time, he assured them both, that he would open it up to questions they had, but they were to remain silent until then, unless he specifically allowed them to speak.
And then he warned them about Bane’s personality. Obi-Wan could imagine the age bias and misogyny they were all about to encounter. Obi-Wan reminded them to keep a placid face and continue to give their emotions to the Force. Once this was over, they could all talk about it, and meditate together. It would be a good opportunity, he told them, for them to get a feel for how selfish, annoying, and offensive people could be, without it being a physically manifest person to put them in that sort of danger.
Before Obi-Wan opened the holocron, he introduced the recording session and noted who was present.
And then, offloading his trepidation and personal dread into the Force, Master Kenobi opened the holocron.
“Oh. It’s you again. The child master. Who have you got with you, then?”
Obi-Wan serenely introduced Jon and Shana with their titles and last names.
“Are you fucking kidding me? He’s a knight that young, and you’re a master that young? Sounds like something the Sith would do. Your Twi’lek’s beautiful, though. Think she’d be up for it? You into sharing, Kenobi?”
Bane leered at her.
Obi-Wan poured his outrage into the Force, and helped Shana do the same, through their bond. He also nudged Jon to do the same. “Bit young for that, Bane, darling,” he said, flirting to redirect his attention. “But I did wonder if you’d be a dear and answer just a few of my questions?” Obi-Wan broke the mask of serenity and replaced it with the mask of sexual interest.
Bane was redirected. “You’re Stewjoni, aren’t you? Bet you’d be super fun to fuck. What do you want, Kenobi? And what are you going to give me for it?”
Obi-Wan nudged Shana and Jon to continue to release their negative emotion into the Force, as he was continuing to do.
“I am Stewjoni, yes. And my partners have had no complaints, but it is so hard to honestly gauge one’s own ability, don’t you think? Certainly, there are those who believe that they have great prowess with their intimate skills but in truth possess barely the rudimentary capacity to engage. And who is willing to break the bad news to them?” Obi-Wan asked with perfect, untouchable sincerity that rang like a hammer of doom into Bane’s psyche.
The ghost stopped being a sexualized moron in front of children.
“As to what I want, I will be clear about that in just a moment. As to what I will give you, it is the same thing as before; I am endeavoring to sort out how one releases a Force Ghost from the ritual that binds them to the holocron. And when I have some ideas on that front, I’ll test them on you. That is, truly, all I can give you, after having redeemed you and the holocron you reside in.”
“Alright, alright. Let’s make this quick then. What do you want to know this time?”
Obi-Wan got Bane to recite all the sith temples he knew of, and all the temples older than the Sith and the Jedi which also had dark artifacts, or sith artifacts hidden in them. He recited all the dark force nexii that he knew of, and all the lost jedi temples the sith had found and corrupted, as well as the lost jedi temples that were on their list to find and corrupt, when last he lived, or spoke with anyone through the holocron. He also, quite spontaneously, listed out the light force artifacts that were on the list to find and corrupt. They mostly weren’t Jedi in nature, as the Jedi tended not to have light force artifacts beyond their lightsabers, which apparently the Sith thought was short sighted and rather stupid, a belief Bane still held. But these artifacts either predated the Jedi and Sith Orders, or were part of the various Force Church sects largely populated by Force Nulls, and artifacts created or held by the Guardians of the Whills.
Obi-Wan looked to Jon and Shana and invited any questions they had.
“How did you fall?” Jon asked simply.
“Fuck off, boy knight. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why are you such a raging asshole?” Shana asked, her voice slipping into a standard Ryl accent that Obi-Wan hadn’t heard from her before. He didn’t chide her for language, only nudged her through their bond to continue to release her negative emotion. He did the same for Jon.
Bane was back to leering at her. “It’s all part of my charm, baby girl. Open up the holocron on your own next time and maybe I’ll tell you all about it, hmm?”
“Thank you for your cooperation, Bane. Much appreciated,” Obi-Wan said, closing the holocron deftly just as Bane turned to him and tried to say something he likely wouldn’t care to hear.
They ended the recording and Obi-Wan opened the floor to the children and their reactions.
Jon wanted to kill him. It was an entirely relatable reaction to dealing with Darth Flimsi-Cut, in Obi-Wan’s considered opinion.
Shana wanted to cut his balls off. Also quite a relatable response.
He let them rage for quite a while, then shared his own personal nickname for Bane, which got them giggling. They meditated for quite a while and then had a rousing conversation about how being a sexual predator, being a generally selfish sentient, and quick to embracing negative emotion might set one’s self up quite naturally to being recruited by the Sith, if one were also quite Force Sensitive. They spoke at length about how dangerous it was for anyone who was Force Sensitive to give into living out their darker emotions.
Jon admitted that An’ya Kuro (they now used her full name without any titles or mysterious pseudonyms as a matter of course) had almost constantly threatened that Jon would surely fall.
“Anyone can fall, Jon, and I would say An’ya’s on the edge of doing so herself. I can fall. You can fall. Shana can fall. Do I think you have more of a likelihood than any other Force Sensitive, however? No. No, I don’t. But this is why we go to the mind healers and in the Temple, the soul healers. They keep us honest. They notice things we don’t. They help to lead us into greater calm, insight, wisdom, and compassion in periods of unbelievable stress and distress.
“It’s also why we have attachments.”
Jon looked scandalized.
“Yes, we can’t be so attached to a person, place, or thing that we can’t give it up when we need to, temporarily or permanently. But it is also the attachments that keep us grounded. I used my bond with Shana to help her during that conversation, and I nudged you, too. That’s because I have attachments to you, and you have attachments to me. Those attachments helped us all. And it was easy for me to flirt with that deeply misguided and terrifically unattractive soul and so redirect him because I knew it would actively help the both of you. That’s attachment at its best, my darlings.”
Obi-Wan knelt down before his padawan and his soon-to-be child. “I’m quite attached to both of you. And I absolutely have an attachment to both of you growing up strong, healthy, happy, and in the light. I want you both to be the fierce, beautiful, competent sentients I know you can be when you are at your very best. And everyone is most beautiful when they are happy, healthy, and have their needs met. And when you struggle, when the negative emotion threatens to overwhelm you, I want your attachment to me to be a source of light and strength in your life.”
Obi-Wan felt a pairbond snap into place with Jon as the young knight flung himself at the master, quickly joined by his padawan. He had arms and lek around his neck, fingers grabbing at his gorget and clutching at the chainmail. A soft semi-muffled ringing was slowly dying away from Jon’s chainmail striking his own.
For his part, Obi-Wan had two armfuls of children he loved and cared for, and his heart felt very full, indeed.
“I love you so, my darling children. And I would very much like you to both consider bringing up Darth Flimsi-Cut to your mind healers’ attention the next time you speak with them, hmm?”
They both nodded and the hug lasted a long while.
[TW Generalized Content: Bane insults Obi-Wan and Jon and sexually objectifies Shana. Obi-Wan redirects him, insults and embarrasses him while being wholly polite the entire time. Obi-Wan then gets the information he wants; locations of temples and artifacts. Jon asks why Bane fell, and Bane is rude. Shana asks why Bane is an asshole, and Bane propositions her.]
It’s possible that Obi-Wan might have and even should have warned Jaster that rather explicit conversations might be forthcoming from their children at odd times. But he honestly didn’t think about it much. Jaster didn’t seem to have many hangups about physical modesty that Obi-Wan had noticed, anyway, and Obi-Wan did occasionally forget that other cultures were not quite so calm and reasonable about sex and physical nudity as they were in the Order.
So when Jon brought up the question of Obi-Wan’s sexual performance over breakfast, Jaster choked on his shig. Jango flushed, and his jaw dropped. Shana just looked interested in the answer to the question.
“Sometimes, Jon, it’s best to lead in with gentler questions first, or warn a person who is friendly that you’re going to ask something difficult. Not for interrogations, of course,” Obi-Wan gently advised.
“Was that a hard question?” he asked, looking confused. “I thought it would be an easy one.”
Obi-Wan smiled. “Not difficult for him to know the answer, perhaps, but I think maybe Mandalorians don’t discuss sex quite as easily as we imagined. We may have unintentionally stumbled into a taboo area.”
Jaster was trying valiantly to stop coughing long enough to address the issue, and finally he did, while Jon and Shana had very thoughtful looks on their faces.
“Can I know why you want to know?” Jaster finally asked, his voice hoarse. Honestly, it reminded Obi-Wan of the ‘plastoid armor’ incident. Another Mandalorian taboo, discovered.
“We were talking with Darth Flimsi-Cut, and he’s really a very terrible person, even if he’s not a Sith anymore, and Master Kenobi-”
“O’buir,” Jango softly corrected.
“O’buir,” Jon corrected, “O’buir talked him into the ground and made him too embarrassed to keep harassing us, and then got him to actually answer his questions. But other things came up, and I’m curious. Why is being Stewjoni sexually important, O’buir?”
Jango buried his flushed face in his hands and Jaster looked absolutely fascinated to hear the answer.
Obi-Wan just softly smiled at his family. “Several reasons, I’m sure, novelty being one of them. We have very strong naturally occuring pheromones, which subconsciously affect people’s behavior, provided they’re of a compatible species. I take suppressants so that my pheromones are almost undetectable. Also, all Stewjoni are neither strictly male nor female, we are a third and fourth gender, presenting in many ways as a standard near human male or female might, but we have all the attendant sexual organs of both genders.”
“Oooh,” Shana and Jon said, both sporting looks of intense thoughtfulness on their features.
“So you can both father and mother children?” Shana asked.
“I could, if I and my partner both agreed on it, yes.”
Jon spoke next. “What did he mean, that you would probably be a good fuck?”
“Language, Jon,” Obi-Wan said while Jaster had one last weak cough and Jango made a strangled squeaking sound from behind his hands.
“It was a direct quote, Master,” Shana defended.
It wasn’t actually. They would need to work on Jon’s verbatim skills. Still, Obi-Wan leveled a stare at her. “And when did we decide it was a good idea to directly quote former and current Sith Masters in everyday conversation?” Obviously in reports to the council, or the archives, it was a necessary evil. Likewise to mind healers, soul healers, and our closest attachments when we are very upset, it’s what had to happen. But not over breakfast.
Shana deflated. “Sorry, Master.”
“Sorry, O’buir,” Jon echoed.
“Thank you. To answer your question, Jon,” Obi-Wan began, ignoring Jaster’s incredulous looks and highly confused emotional state, and Jango’s near perfect meltdown of embarrassment, “it’s probably the pheromone issue. When unregulated, I can, in theory, control the state and length of sexual enjoyment and participation of myself and my partner. I understand it can be both unconscious and conscious on my part, but I’ve never tried it and I’m not at all sure how it really works. I do think this is why Stewjoni are highly prized as pleasure slaves. If one is able to break the slave’s will, such a state would be at the slave-owner’s direction. Given that many people are addicted to sex, and are too selfish to be good lovers, or cultivate good lovers in return, such a slave would be, naturally, quite coveted among certain sentients.
“Now, eat your breakfast and give Jas’buir time to think about how he wants to answer or not answer your question.”
Jaster leveled a hard look at him.
Obi-Wan smiled over the breakfast table. He poured himself and his Jedi children more tea, and then ate more of his delicious breakfast porridge.
Jaster made it just beautifully, really. Obi-Wan was very grateful. He sent a little tendril of appreciation that made Jaster shake his head and have much more complicated emotions than before.
Obi-Wan mentally shrugged and left his beloved to his thoughts. They ate in silence for a long time before Jaster did speak.
“Obi-Wan is an exceptionally fine lover. He is careful, considerate, and attentive. He communicates easily what he needs and wants, and what he prefers not to do. I also find him extraordinarily attractive, even without the pheromones.”
Shana crinkled her nose in evident distaste, looking at Obi-Wan, which just made him throw back his head with laughter. “Really?” she asked, clearly unconvinced.
“He’s not that bad,” Jon defended quietly from his other side.
Shana snorted. “If you say so,” she said with a totally disbelieving tone to her voice. It only made Obi-Wan laugh harder. Jaster finally joined him.
Jango gave the appearance of ignoring them all, and Obi-Wan was quietly shielding him. It was a silly taboo, to his mind, but it was still the culture they found themselves in, so shielding from his shameless siblings was the least he could do. His porridge was apparently fascinating, and Obi-Wan wanted to give him that little fiction.
When Shana asked Obi-Wan if Jas’buir was a good lover, Jango excused himself from the table. Obi-Wan continued to shield him.
Kenobi was, however, happy to sing Jaster’s praises, and from the quiet in the kitchen, he knew Jango was still listening.
It took a little planning, and it wouldn’t go into effect until Tholme and Quinlan were back, but for two days together, the two days after their wedding, Obi-Wan and Jaster would have no meetings and nearly no responsibilities. Myles’ buire would bring over dinner, Tholme would bring breakfast, and the three adults would watch over their children and their collective studies for the time in between. That little space after dinner, including the two meals, would be family time, with the addition of Tholme and Quinlan.
The wedding itself was a little more involved than a typical Mandalorian wedding, but that was mostly because Jaster was the Mand’alor (even if it was still a contested title). They would publically say the vows, and before the giant mythosaur skull Jaster had erected outside the Forge of Keldabe, and then there would be a feast. The various clan heads associated with the Haat’ade and the pacifist faction that Tholme had wrangled to a degree would be notified in enough time for them to arrive and bear witness, but that was as close to formality that Mandalorians could bear to go, apparently.
A week before the wedding, Obi-Wan had one of his rare day-time debilitating visions, collapsing mid-word just after breakfast and utterly terrifying his family.
He came to on the floor between the dining table and the karyai, a small pillow under his head and Mij Gilamar, who was also a medic, leaning over him.
“Padawan,” he called weakly.
Shana sped to his side, sliding on her knees in her haste. “Yes, Master. I’m here.”
“Get a datapad. Take notes.”
“Got it,” she said, already running to her room.
“Water?” he asked, and almost immediately Jaster was by his side, lifting his head slightly, holding a cup of water to his lips.
“Cyare, what happened?” Jaster asked in almost a whisper.
“Vision,” Obi-Wan said tiredly. “Told you they were noticeable.”
“Your armor is noticeable,” he said wryly, his voice so soft. “This was terrifying.”
“No fun on my end, either, I assure you,” he said softly.
“How are you feeling?” Jaster asked.
“Like I’ve been hit by a speeder,” Obi-Wan responded honestly.
“What do you need after you have a vision?” Mij asked, joining in the conversation.
“Rest. Liquids. Food. Sleep if I can manage it, but I have insomnia at the best of times. I need to write down the vision before it fades, and I need to meditate on it to discern its meaning. That’s the most important part, as if I don’t, I’ll have the same vision again just as soon as my body can take it. And again. And again.”
“How long will you need to rest?”
“Two days is best. I’ll be at about seventy percent by then. Five days to get back to one hundred percent, if there are no lingering nightmares. But I have two days before the vision threatens to occur again, if left unattended.”
“Why would there be nightmares?” Mij asked.
“I have yet to have a pleasant vision of the future. Those don’t need to be avoided. I’m given a vision in enough time to change the outcome. Jaster, love, can you help me take off my armor and help me to the karyai?”
He did so, and indeed, getting the chainmail off without inverting himself entirely was like wrestling a feral tooka. Between the combined commentary of the medic and his entire family, Jaster was able to do it. He had Jango fetch his fur robe and after he put it on him, carried Obi-Wan to the pit couch, and put his lightsaber within reach of him.
Shana cuddled up next to him with the datapad.
He quietly dictated the vision, focusing in on it as best he could, and then going back and adding as much detail as he could possibly manage. Any little thing could be helpful.
“Send that to my datapad, would you my dear?” he asked, when he was finished.
“And mine as well, Shan’ika.”
“Elek, buire,” she replied.
And then Obi-Wan was welcomed into the soft arms of dreamless sleep, wrapped in his warm fur with his padawan curled around him.
He didn’t get a chance to meditate until after dinner, mostly because he just couldn’t manage to stay awake long enough, though at least the nightmares didn’t begin until that night, by which point he was alone in the private karyai with Jaster keeping him toasty warm.
The nightmares sponsored by visions were always at least as awful as the original vision, and usually worse, as they typically brought in other elements, and there was usually a truly stupendous amount of shame and guilt.
The fact that it was Jaster who woke him from the dream of Jaster being assassinated was marginally helpful. The fact that the base vision was of Jaster being assassinated at their very public wedding by virtue of several well-placed bombs stole any comfort Obi-Wan had. The nightmare had made it very clear that it was actually all Obi-Wan’s fault.
And it was very convincing.
There had been no time to discuss it, no time to ask if Jaster understood the implications, the timing, but that could come tomorrow. Or the next day. As it was, Obi-Wan knew his beloved was working on it at least to a degree, as he’d wanted a copy of the vision.
Whatever happened, they had enough time, and were capable of changing the dark outcome to a lighter one, or else the Force wouldn’t have bothered giving him a vision at all. If it was all so very inevitable, he would have last minute warning at best. And if it was all so thoroughly in motion, as the Toad’s completely spurious suppositions suggested, the Force would not bother torturing people with the information.
They were obviously meant to do something about it, or the Force would be entirely mum on the subject.
Toad.
Obi-Wan had benefited greatly from a healing trance on the second day, so much so he was actually able to be upright at the dining table in time for dinner with his family. Tholme and Quinlan had returned to Keldabe and joined them and Jaster had laid out the precautions and preventive measures he was taking. Tholme was close to uncovering the traitor, but he and his padawan had not yet managed it.
The vision hit him just as he rose from the dining table, and this one was so much worse than seeing his wedding bombed and his beloved die.
[TRIGGER WARNING: Obi-Wan’s second vision. Includes body horror elements. If you prefer, skip from, “His son, who…” and start reading again at, “He pushed his love and affection…” Content of skipped material is summarized at the end of the scene.]
He woke in a pile of cuddles, in the karyai.
“Fuck,” he groaned. Two visions in such close proximity were much worse than two spread months apart.
“Language,” all the children around him intoned softly.
Obi-Wan smiled despite himself, just a little bit and was grateful that someone was holding a cup of water against his lips.
“I have the datapad, Master,” Shana said quietly. He realized she was sitting across his lap. Jon was to his left. Obi-Wan was leaning heavily on Jaster and Jango had taken off some of his armor and was cuddled on top of his father, and right against Shana.
Tholme and Quinlan were sitting opposite them.
Obi-Wan freed a hand, the one in front of Jaster. He began signing silently.
‘ Situation dire. Fully armored/armed. Enemy near. Silent running.’
Jango and Jon shot up from the karyai and darted to their rooms. After a moment of hesitation, Shana bolted into Obi-Wan’s room and came back moments later carrying his armor in her arms. He picked through the armor until he got his left vambrace and turned on the signal jammer.
“Do you have a stim shot, Jaster?” Obi-Wan asked tiredly.
Obi-Wan could feel his reluctance, but he wordlessly pulled something out of one of his belt packs and handed it over. The Jedi stabbed himself in the thigh, then gasped.
“I know who the traitor is,” he said, gasping for air and blinking through the adrenaline rush. He was shrugging out of the fur robe and pulling his chain mail tunic over his head, with Jaster’s help. He kneeled up on the cushions to put his weapons belt on, then called his lightsaber to his hand and snapped it to his belt as well. He strapped the bottoms of the blaster holsters to his thighs and then pulled the vambraces on. Then the gorget. It was all the wrong order, but that hardly mattered to him right now.
“Shana, you’ll be staying with me. Tholme, may I borrow Quinlan while you join Jaster? My strength is unreliable right now, but between the three of us I believe we’ll be safe.”
He nodded at his padawan. “Boots on, dear. I’ll stay down here for now.” He hooked his ear comm over his lobe and checked the frequency on his vambrace as Jaster pulled his boots on and his helmet.
“What was the vision, Ob’ika?” Jaster asked, his voice flat through the vocoder. “Who is the traitor?”
He took a deep breath. “I’ll… give details later. The… it… there are things to work through, emotionally. An assassination attempt, possibly this evening. Everyone was asleep. The intruder passed by the children in the karyai and made straight for us. Quick and clean through the head. But the children woke. Their vengeance was immediate. It’s Montross.”
Shock. Horror. Shame.
“That explains much,” Tholme said darkly.
“I’ll kill him,” Jango snarled, his helmet not yet on.
Jaster put a hand on his eldest child’s pauldron. “First we catch him and his squad. Then we interrogate and try them. If there’s no remorse, then we kill them.” He turned to Jon and Tholme. “When we find them, can you hold them with the Force so we can get their helmets and vambraces off before we bind them?”
Both nodded.
“Are you able to even keep their jaws and eyes stabilized until the helmets are off?”
They nodded again.
“There are bugs in here,” Obi-Wan said, realizing it was true, and that’s why the Force wanted him to be silent before he could turn his signal jammer on. “I’ll have the padawans find them.”
“Don’t destroy them,” Jaster said. “Put them in the oven, with the signal jammer on and in there. I’ll want those for evidence. Change the door code when we leave, and put the siege brace on.”
And then they were gone.
Obi-Wan led the children through the finding of the bugs. One was under each armor stand in every private room, and one was underneath the dining table, centrally located in the living space.
They disposed of them and Obi-Wan’s entire left vambrace went in the oven with the bugs on a plate.
Obi-Wan found the three siege bars that fitted into small holes in the sliding front door that would keep it from sliding open as well as brace against a battering ram. He locked them in, low, middle and high on the door. Then he changed the door code and locked it.
“Come,” he said. “We will do a battle meditation and so be in full readiness should an enemy approach.”
They three knelt down on pillows brought up from the karyai and Obi-Wan led them in a light, full-awareness meditation to first release their negative emotions, and then to stretch out their senses to a very particular distance around the room, to focus and catalog exactly who was around them and what their intent was. Periodically, Kenobi nudged the padawans to release their emotion again and focus on their perimeter, very occasionally flaring their attention beyond the perimeter just to be on the safe side before bringing it back into a manageable space. Obi-Wan himself monitored a wider area, and given the prevalence of jetpacks in the culture, he monitored the wide open space above and out the courtyard their thin windows looked out to. The windows weren’t wide enough for egress, but it was enough for shots to be fired, or perhaps very small assassin droids.
In true battle meditation fashion, they formed a loose triangle and faced away from each other. Kenobi faced the windows.
And then Jaster’s voice came through his ear piece. He’d rerouted it through his regular comm when he put his vambrace in the oven. “Confirm, we have Montross. The shabuir broke instantly. We have his squad. Jon is coming for the bugs. This may be a long night. Sleep if you can, cyare.”
“Jon is coming,” Obi-Wan murmured.
And then Jon teleported in. He went straight to the oven and poured the bugs into a bag, or so it sounded. He brought Obi-Wan’s vambrace back to him and pressed his forehead in for a Keldabe kiss.
Obi-Wan came out of his meditation easily and smiled at his son.
His son who, at their abrupt assassination and subsequent hard break of their bonds in the vision, had reached through shadow to pull Montross’s still beating heart out of his body while his sister still screamed from the shock and pain of her broken padawan bond, both of them Falling quite spectacularly in the process.
The vision didn’t go so far, but Obi-Wan wouldn’t have put it past them for his grieving, violent children to have sliced and sauteed Jon’s prize and served it for breakfast. It wasn’t unheard of, in some cultures.
He pushed his love and affection through their bond. “Thank you, dear one. You are very good.”
Jon snorted. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Sometimes, it’s what we don’t do that matters the most, Jon,” Obi-Wan said.
Jon gave him a long, knowing look. “We’ll talk about that soon?”
“I promise, my love. And all shall be well in the end. If it’s not well, it’s not the end.”
Jon stood up and bowed deeply, something he tended not to do around Jaster and Jango. Obi-Wan bowed in return from his meditation posture.
Obi-Wan got the padawans up and cleared an area for them to spar. They needed to burn off the energy and it was high time that Shana show Quinlan her far superior hand-to-hand skills. Obi-Wan himself went through the first three katas he had created for Soulless Monster, at the Battlemaster’s behest, and ran them at full speed. Almost nearing the end, his stim shot cocktail burned away completely. He tugged his boots off and stumbled into the karyai. He was aware enough to shove two pillows under his head to mitigate the gorget he still wore, before he fell very deeply to sleep.
[TW Generalized Content: In the vision, when their bonds break at Obi-Wan’s death, the horror and pain is so great for Jon and Shana that they Fall, and Jon brutally kills the assassin.]
It came to him in a dream in the second night out from the second vision. One could call it a nightmare, except that it wasn’t anything particularly untrue, or exaggerated. It was just what it was. He was seeing it with new eyes, was the thing.
Obi-Wan liked to think of that time of his life as the first fifty years he was in carbonite storage, but he didn’t know if that was strictly true. It might have been a bit shorter than fifty, perhaps. It might have been quite a bit longer. It was at the least the length of the lives of all those he had a bond with.
That’s what he’d considered for hundreds of years, really. It was one of those suppositions in his mind that was almost just… a given at this point.
But perhaps it wasn’t necessarily true.
Obi-Wan realized he could have looked up the information in the archives when he was on Coruscant for nearly a month, but he hadn’t. Now he knew why, perhaps.
Jaster was still asleep, and Obi-Wan pulled himself away and pulled out his brown set of clothes and after a moment of hesitation, left all his armor off, and too, his white fur robe. He pulled his tabards on, and used his old sash that had survived carbonite more or less well. He pulled the new brown robe over himself, pulled the hood up and over his head.
Obi-Wan knelt down on the cushions of their private karyai, lacking only his boots. His lightsaber was stuffed in his sash wrapped around his waist.
And then he realized he lacked another thing.
The sith holocron.
Pieces of the puzzle started to click together in his head.
Neither of his healers had realized he hadn’t redeemed the holocron before carbonite, or even during carbonite. He genuinely never thought to mention that it had been after he came out of carbonite storage. Obi-Wan had thought it was obvious.
He breathed deeply and entered his meditation with trepidation, pulling on the lightness of the Force as a bulwark against what he considered might be true.
It was the reason he was still cold all of the time.
He hadn’t had a fifty-year long panic attack. Not… not exactly.
Or, at least… it wasn’t only a panic attack, no matter how long it lasted.
Oh, it was true from a certain point of view, absolutely. That was his internal reality; panic. It just made the most sense, up until this very moment, to have thought of it thusly, ‘Yes, yes, I was stuck in carbonite and after I woke up from the knockout drugs I had a fifty year long panic attack until I managed to calm myself, or possibly just wear myself out. Then I started meditating and rebuilding my shields, and the rest is history.’
And underneath the panic was horror, and under that terror, and then pain, and then infinite sadness, and finally at the bottom of it all was fear.
Fear, it seemed, did not lead to anger and hatred. Not for Obi-Wan Kenobi.
But he’d Fallen, all the same.
Well, fuck.
Had he Fallen early? Late? As his bonds painfully snapped? He couldn’t even remember feeling them do so. He only remembered them not being there when he finally came out of it.
And then another horrible realization dawned.
That’s why they didn’t come for me. I was totally unshielded and my master felt me Fall.
Shame and horror filled his being and Obi-Wan did his best to let it flow unimpeded into the Force.
It might have been less than fifty years, actually. They might have all severed the bonds early. It would make sense.
At least I didn’t hurt anyone. Other than the ones I loved most in the galaxy.
Again, he let the shame and horror, the infinite sadness flow out of himself as quickly as he could manage and into the Force.
He would have to admit this to his soul healer. Possibly the council. They would recall him to the Temple and take away his padawan, and he would deserve it.
Except of course that Jaster had adopted Shana, and so she might not be his padawan anymore, but she was actually his daughter, now, or would be once they married in three days.
Well, the first thing to do was to meditate with Tholme, if he would allow it, and have him search Kenobi out thoroughly to find whatever remaining stain of dark there was, catalog it, and perhaps if he could, help Kenobi to release it.
The second thing to do would be to tell Master Yaddle in private conference, perhaps with Tholme present.
He could leave the Order, of course. That might be the most graceful course of action. They would still want their padawan back, but there would be others Shana could train with, and as her parent he would still get to see her, occasionally, and more so when she was knighted.
And Jaster. He would tell Jaster when he woke.
Obi-Wan couldn’t really anticipate which way Jaster would go on the subject. There was no love lost between the average Mandalorian and the Jedi Order, and for more reasons than just one. Jaster wasn’t like that, of course, and the Haat’ade had ongoing contracts with the Order.
It was doubtful that Jaster wanted to be with him just because he was a Master of the Order, and a High Counselor. And it was possible that Jaster wouldn’t care that six hundred or so years ago he’d had an abrupt and wrenching slide into darkness that he had somehow, mysteriously dragged himself back out of.
But it all sounded too convenient to Obi-Wan.
He came out of his meditation with tears streaming down his face. He looked over to his lover, his beloved, his fiance, and actually, his Mand’alor and quailed.
He didn’t want to wait until morning. He was a wreck now. If he waited until morning, it would only be worse.
He didn’t want to wake Jaster up. He’d barely gotten any sleep last night, interrogating the traitors and having their quarters ransacked, their comms, dataclips, and datapads confiscated, and starting to go through some of the evidence with his new second, Kal Skirata, who would be organizing a team to sort through things and prepare for a trial in two days.
Obi-Wan checked his comm. Well, Jaster had gotten two hours of sleep last night, and he’d already gotten four while Kenobi had presently been meditating. Perhaps he could wake him up.
He moved first to release his negative emotion, though to be honest, the more he released, the more there seemed to be.
His heart was in his throat.
“Jaster. Jaster, wake up. I need to talk to you, it’s important.”
Jaster went from deeply asleep to wide awake with a blaster in his hand, scanning the room.
“We’re not in danger,” Obi-Wan assured him. “I just… I realized… And I needed… I mean…”
Jaster stowed the blaster and hit the lightswitch near the karyai. He squinted and winced, and then Obi-Wan watched all the color drain from his face.
“Are you leaving me?” he whispered in horror.
“What?” Obi-Wan asked, confused. “No! I mean…” And then he thought about what he had to say. “Not unless you want me to go. I have… some difficult things to say.”
“If you’re not leaving, why are you wearing the Jedi’s standard kit? Why aren’t you wearing your fur? Aren’t you cold?”
Obi-Wan winced. “Yes, I am cold. And now I know why.”
“Ob’ika, why aren’t you in your cin vhetin?”
Obi-Wan outright cringed. “I’m not sure I deserve it,” he admitted in a whisper.
“No one deserves cin vhetin, that’s why we have it,” Jaster said. “Go change, then tell me. I know your heart. You have every right to claim cin vhetin.”
Obi-Wan broke down and wept. Jaster crawled to him and wrapped himself, and a blanket, around him. If Obi-Wan had been in any other state of mind but the one he was in, it might have been a sexually charged moment. Jaster was naked, kneeling with his legs spread wide around Obi-Wan’s own, clutching him hard.
But that was not what this was.
Kenobi sobbed his heart out and Jaster held him.
Eventually, he did get up, he did change out of his browns. He only pulled his white tights on, and his inner tunic, and then the fur robe, tossing Jaster one of his own sleep tunics when he asked. He sat down cross legged in the karyai, pulling on thick white socks and pulling his hood up, but only halfway. It hung on the top of his head and did not obscure his eyes.
And then he told Jaster. He told him everything.
He cried more, and Jaster was very kind, listening, wiping away his tears, reserving judgement.
Obi-Wan couldn’t bear to think of what his emotions might be, and he’d been shielding hard so that neither Shana nor Jon would be affected by his complete emotional meltdown. Which meant he couldn’t feel Jaster, either.
“If you Fall again, I will find you, cyare. I will hunt you down through this galaxy and I will bring you back. I will not leave you alone to be tortured by your pain in the void of space like your demagolka dar’buir. I love you, Ob’ika, and the love of a Haat’Mando’ad does not so easily waste away. And it has been more than six hundred years since you did Fall. That was seven lifetimes ago, cyare. I would recommend you say nothing to anyone at all, if you weren’t so cold most of the time. Why is it their business what you went through when they had already abandoned you?” Jaster whispered, his arms still rubbing Obi-Wan’s back. “You do them a great honor to still associate with them, to give them your insight and advice, to help them reform themselves. You don’t need to do that, and if you wish to leave, I will support you.”
“They’ll take away my padawan, I know they will,” Obi-Wan whispered, still clinging to the horror.
“They can try,” Jaster said quietly, darkly. “If it comes to that and she chooses to return, as her parents we would let her. And if she chooses not to return? We will support her in her choice. She is already a Jetii’Mando’Ad, the third of four. They cannot take that away from her, and they cannot take us away from her. I won’t allow it,” he said the last on a beautifully threatening whisper that broke through Obi-Wan’s melancholy.
“Come. Lay down with me, ner mesh’la cyar’ika. Let me hold you while you release your pain. Tomorrow, early, you can work with Tholme to see if he can dig out the last of the roots of cold and suffering within you. If you must, talk with Yaddle. She seems the most reasonable and level headed out of the bunch.”
Obi-Wan laid back down, letting Jaster fuss over him, arranging pillows under and around him, and holding him front to front, Obi-Wan’s cold nose snuggling into Jaster’s throat.
“I love you, Jaster Mereel.”
“Ni kar’tayli gar darasuum, ner mesh’la Ob’ika. The only reason I would try to bring you back to the light, Ob’ika, is because being dark would make you unhappy. I know it would,” Jaster whispered. “But light, or dark, it’s you I love. Please don’t ever think otherwise.”
Obi-Wan cried one last time before he dedicated himself to releasing the incredible amount of suffering and pain he bore into the Force. And this time, he actually got somewhere.
Obi-Wan had always run a little cold. Most Force Sensitives did, apart from Twi’leks. And since he was already in the habit of wearing his fur robe, he just tended to not wrap it so very firmly around himself, now. He tended to leave the hood down unless he required some measure of anonymity, though most everyone knew who the sentient in the white robes and armor was, by now.
Tholme helped him without comment, finding the roots of ‘cold and suffering’ as Jaster put it, more easily as a shadow than his mind healer had, who had fully examined him as deeply as she could and found nothing at all.
This, Jaster pointed out, was further reason he shouldn’t be worried.
Kenobi and Tholme reported to Yaddle together in one of the empty private karyai rooms in Jaster’s apartment, while the children worked on their modules in the main room.
“Examined you, the high council have. There, I was. Truly no darkness in you, did we find. Light, and mastery, all that remained, there was. A tendril of darkness only remained, true. Find it, Master Tholme did, but only when told it would be there. Like your so instructive holocron, hmm?
“And yours, it might not have been. The sith holocron. Bore you it for seven hundred years, hmm? Such effects also come from it, may they not? My understanding, this is. A matter for shadows and archive, not the high council, this is. A danger, you are not, Master Kenobi. A valued member of the Order, you are, Master Kenobi. Add this consideration to our shadow training, we will. Thanks to you, our shadows, safer will be, Master Kenobi.”
Master Yaddle bowed deeply and Kenobi returned the bow.
They spoke of other things, briefly, and they promised on their return in five months to record a holocron on the lost shadow techniques that An’ya Kuro had taught Jon Antilles, as well as mentor several shadows in practicing them, Yaddle included.
After the holocomm was over they both remained in the private room for several long moments, sending and checking their comm messages and using Obi-Wan’s encrypted long distance comm. When finished, Obi-Wan reaffixed the holo display/recording mechanism back into the socket on his vambrace.
“You are a being of uncommon courage and fortitude, Master Kenobi. I’m not sure I would have been so forthcoming, in your position,” Master Tholme said quietly.
Obi-Wan looked to the Jedi next to him. “I considered it. Of course I did. But it felt too much like lying. And I’d have to do it every time I sat in a council meeting. Every time I looked another Jedi in the eyes. Every time I meditated with Shana, or Jon, or anyone else. I could see very quickly how those lies would just stack up and overwhelm me eventually, inviting in the dark, even if it hadn’t really been there to begin with. So I could admit that I’d Fallen, and recovered on my own a very long time ago and so face those consequences, or walk with my eyes wide open into a trap of my own making, and Fall for certain, once again, sometime in the next ten or twenty years.”
“As I said. Uncommon courage and fortitude. It is an honor to know you,” he said, offering his arm to shake, as friends did.
Obi-Wan smiled for the first time in days, and took Tholme’s wrist.
He would never get his crechemates back. He would never have an opportunity to speak with his master and ask if she truly had abandoned him, or if perhaps she was barred from seeking him out, or some other reason. He’d never have anyone at all from that life except a misguided Toad who was unbearable at 150 and not much better at 850, and a missing Sephi master he once spent a pleasant afternoon with.
But perhaps he truly could start again.
And for the first time since he knew what year he was in, he wondered if any of his lineage might remain.
[TRIGGER WARNING: They process the vision and discuss it. Body horror elements. If you need to skip it, skip the single paragraph starting, “It was certainly Montross in his armor…” ALSO, skip the single paragraph starting, “ “I guess if I’d seen…””]
Obi-Wan had already arranged with Tholme to have private conversation time with his family after dinner that night. Tholme took his padawan off to practice their sneaking throughout the darkened Keldabe Keep in what he assured him would be a world-class game of hunt-and-seek the likes of which his chaos gremlin could only dream of. The fact that they both could now shadow walk only added a phenomenal level of interest to the game.
And then Obi-Wan, with Jaster, cuddled their children closely in the karyai, armor off and in comfortable sleep clothes, and quietly had several very difficult conversations.
Obi-Wan shared Yaddle’s interpretation of why he had been cold, which led to a very productive conversation about the hidden dangers of interacting with dark artifacts.
Obi-Wan shared his own new interpretation of his decades-long panic attack in carbonite, and the entire family had a rousing conversation about what different sorts of people were capable of when they fell, if they fell, and the circumstances of their falling. Obi-Wan assured them all that he was quite dangerous while firmly in the light and anyone who provoked his ire while he was Fallen would get even more danger, less contained and more unhinged without compromising any of his competence. But still, they talked about what it might be like to fall because of deep sadness and abandonment instead of other ways, like rage. How maybe it might get you to the same place, eventually, no matter the reason.
They mused, without coming to any definitive resolution, how he pulled himself back up into the light. “I just remember being calm again, coming back to myself. The panic wasn’t there anymore. If I hadn’t been stuck in the void of wild space with no bonds and nothing but a very occasionally passing purgill, I would have thought perhaps it was outside intervention. But if there was such intervention, be it possibly from a manifestation or other of the Force, I was totally unaware of it. Not even so much as an inkling.”
Despite not knowing the answer, this section of the conversation was no shorter than any other. Jango in particular had some fascinating theories based on the Manda coming to his rescue, not because he was dark, but because he was a good warrior destined to join them and he was in pain. This necessitated a much larger digression into exactly what the Manda was, and the plain fact of the Mando’ade when it came to which side of the Force one associated with; Jedi or Sith, Mandalorians cared what you did, not your philosophies, especially if you don’t follow them closely. And the Sith had sometimes been good allies of the Mandalorians. (The fact that Revan had cut down Mand’alor the Ultimate, his spouse, was actually just shrugged off - being killed by your replacement was an occupational hazard of being the soul ruler and sole ruler of Mandalore whether or not you made good choices in your ruling.) And the Jedi had sometimes been terrible enemies of the Mandalorians. And arguably, dealing with the Mandalorians typically had brought out the best in the Sith and the worst in the Jedi, until very recently, anyway.
The conversation flowed on, and if Obi-Wan hadn’t had a very certain goal in mind, he would have just enjoyed the history and culture and opinions and questions that were being discussed with his beautiful, amazing, intelligent, compassionate family.
“Having said all of that,” he said in a lull, getting his family’s attention. “I think it’s time that I tell you the details of the vision I had.”
And so he did.
It was certainly Montross in his armor who snuck through their apartment at night. It was a blaster bolt to the head, two each, for Jaster and Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan didn’t wake with a Force warning at an intruder and didn’t feel Jaster’s death because he was in a healing trance. But Obi-Wan’s death had brutally and painfully broken the padawan bond with Shana, and the pairbond with Jon, and both woke screaming. Jango was on high alert, but before he could do anything with the blaster he apparently slept with, Jon was already acting. Still sitting in the karyai, he peeled off Montross’ beskar chestplate. Montross was still in their private room, as it all happened too quickly for him to move. Obi-Wan thought perhaps that Jon used the Force on the magclips themselves, rather than the beskar. But once Montross’ armor was peeled away like a crustacean, Jon had used a shadow walking technique to reach through the shadows with just his arm, reach into Montross’ chest, and pull out his still beating heart. The vision ended with Shana and Jon’s eyes glowing yellow in the shadowy dark, with Jango pulling Montross’ helmet off and shooting him repeatedly in the head, and Shana cutting his head off with her lightsaber, which as she held it afterwards, bled red with her pain.
There was a long silence when Obi-Wan finished his telling of the vision.
“A quick vengeance, indeed,” Jaster said quietly into the pain the karyai seemed to cradle.
Jon crawled into Jaster’s outstretched arms, held open in invitation, and Jango was only right behind him, cuddling up hard to Jaster’s side.
Shana was looking wide eyed and horrified, tears already sliding down her cheeks. “Master, I don’t want to fall. But I don’t want you to die, either.”
Obi-Wan held out a hand to her, beckoning her closer if she wanted to be. She did. She launched herself at him.
“I still say it’s not the end of the galaxy if you fall,” Jaster whispered to his family. “I’ll still love you if you fall, even if I’m already marching on. And maybe I’ll be the one to help you come back to yourselves. Because being dark would make you unhappy, and I don’t want you to live unhappy lives. None of you. You, too, Jango. You and I can’t fall, but we’re still both capable of making terrible decisions when we’re guided by grief and pain alone. I don’t want that for any of us. It’s not about being light or dark. It’s about what you do, and if you can be happy.”
“O’buir, will you still love me if I fall?” Jon asked, sobs choking his words.
“Of course I will, Jon. And you, Shana. And you, Jango. I’ll do everything I can in this life and the next to help you come back to a place of peace.”
“But we hunt the sith. And darksiders. We cut their heads off,” Shana said, still weeping, but softly now.
“Only an idiot would go straight for the kill based on philosophical differences alone. I don’t say that idiots don’t exist, but I promise you I am not one of them,” Obi-Wan said. “We hunt the sith and the darksiders, yes. Because they tend to hurt people, and few other people are able to even capture them without being killed. But we recently went on a sith hunt, and no one died. We captured a young child, who I hope very much can be healed and rehabilitated, but he wasn’t just dark, he was also tortured, so that’s a long road of healing he’ll be on. And we captured an adult, who I also hope can be healed and rehabilitated, but he’s a little like Bane - I suspect he was a bit of a terrible person before his fall, and so even when he’s pulled back from to the light, he’ll still be a politician, and probably a bit of a terrible person. He may remain in prison for a very long time. But no one’s head got cut off.”
And then Jaster was urged to describe the sith hunt in excruciating detail, which he and Jango did. Jango added details Obi-Wan hadn’t known about, as he stayed guarding the Zabrak child for a few hours after he was in the Temple. Jaster added details about slug throwers and cortosis, and he promised they could have more training with using slug throwers. Obi-Wan promised to come up with a decent lightsaber form which also incorporated a small, left-handed weapon that contained cortosis. There was a slight digression into the nuances of the Mandalorian battle flute, or bes’bev, and it was all a little bit of lightheartedness thrown into an otherwise difficult and emotional conversation.
Finally, very late in the evening, they had a long talk about what kind of measures would be good if they were faced with a situation like the vision had promised. They briefly touched on Jon’s tendency to go straight for the kill, sometimes based on philosophical differences alone.
“I don’t want to be an idiot,” he groused sadly.
Jaster hugged him tightly with one arm and kissed the top of his head. “I blame your dar’buir. She taught you only one way. We will teach you more ways. Soon they’ll be just as normal for you as going straight for the kill. It’ll take a little time, but we have it, Jo’ika.”
“I guess if I’d seen his beating heart in Jon’s hand, taking off his helmet and shooting him till my blaster was empty would be… a little overkill,” Jango admitted sadly.
Shana agreed that cutting off his head after he was dead was also a little overkill. “But that’s what you do to evil people. You cut off their heads,” she pointed out.
“But…” Obi-Wan prompted.
“There are no evil people. Only evil deeds that people do,” she parroted back, looking like she was thinking quite a bit, which admittedly was the point of the entire exercise.
“You know, there’s a Jedi Master who is older than Yoda and I, and she fought in the Sith wars, when the Jedi formed the Army of Light. She was one of Tarre Vizsla’s padawans, actually. And after the wars, she laid down her lightsaber and functionally, though not technically left the Order. She turned her mind to healing, and diffusing difficult situations, civil wars, that sort of thing. She still kills when she has to, and she does it with as much compassion and as little suffering as she can. She just stops the person’s heart and brain at the same time. She sees each person she has to kill as the innocent child they once were, and each kill as a mercy she offers after a long and troubled life where they just can’t manage to live without desperately hurting everyone around them. Killing is never her first option, nor her second, third, or fourth, but she doesn’t hesitate when it is time. And she takes care of herself before and after, to make sure her own motives are pure, her conscience is clear, and it is still easy for her to access love, joy, and peace. She is very wise, and it is only a shame she could not bear to be in the Order, for she is, I think, the very essence of what a Jedi is meant to be.”
The conversation wound down after that. Teeth were sonicked, glasses of water were had and lights were turned down low. Jango put Jaster’s long black hair in a loose braid, and Obi-Wan did the same for Jon’s even longer black hair. In the end, they all bedded down in a giant heap of cuddles in the main karyai. Three lightsabers, two blasters, and a rather beautiful beskar courting knife with decorative and functional cortosis on it were stuffed under nearby pillows.
And there were no nightmares to be had.
The days leading up to the wedding were very busy, though the days were usually full of something or other, not that reading or meditating felt like anything other than different forms of blissful rest for Obi-Wan. The trial was held for the traitors and Tholme gave evidence based on his and Quinlan’s part of the interrogation and Obi-Wan devoted a bit more time to the children’s physical training, in part to burn off the nervous energy that meditation alone could not rid them of. It was helpful for Obi-Wan as well.
He’d received notice from Madam Nu that she and the rest of Obi-Wan’s extant lineage would be attending his historic wedding to the Mand’alor, but Obi-Wan saw right through her. It was clearly because she had archival information she wanted a better, sooner grip on. That Yaddle was also coming made it patently obvious.
There were plenty of Jedi over the years that were from royal or noble houses, and even more Jedi who had accidentally or on purpose married into them. And there were plenty of Jedi who gave up the Order to go rule their home planet, or another of their choosing. Quinlan Vos himself might need to do it in about thirty or forty years, depending on his parents’ health, which would make any possible intimate alliance between him and Jango’s polycule so much more interesting. Especially if Jango were Mand’alor at that point.
Regardless, Obi-Wan had sent a text comm in confirmation, apologizing in advance that he would be unavailable the two days after the wedding, but if the visitors could stay beyond that, he would be sure to be a better host at that time.
The day of the wedding, in fact, when several of the ori’rammikad, plus Jango and Myles with jetpacks on, were playing Force Tag in a training yard with the padawans, Jon, and both Obi-Wan and Tholme, that was when Obi-Wan got an internal comm through his earpiece.
“Ven’Rid’Alor, your Jedi guests have been cleared for atmosphere entry and landing.”
He ended the game and directed everyone toward the water station. Then he pushed the button on his vambrace. “Thank you, Tzhell. We’ll meet the guard and go pick them up at the space port presently.”
Very few ships got the clearance to land on the small pad and hanger actually in Keldabe Keep, and the rest used a small space port just outside of Keldabe. Various clan heads, some of whom had very impressive titles, had been arriving all day, though most would stay at the clan compounds of the families they were affiliated with, only the pacifist New Mandalorians couldn’t find such a welcome and needed to stay in the Keep as personal guests of the Mand’alor.
Well, the New Mandalorians, and the Jedi.
Obi-Wan wasn’t sure why it felt like a tedious chore. He consulted the Force, on the off chance it was a terrible idea inherently and the Force was just now bothering to tell him about it, but it wasn’t that. He thought about it a little longer, and realized what it might be.
He didn’t know any of these people.
Yes, he knew Jocasta because he had dealt with her as the Head of the Archives. Yes, he knew Yaddle because she was the Head of the Shadows. But he’d never met any of the others, their padawans, padawan siblings, distant lineage nieces and nephews. He’d meditated with Yaddle the two times, hunted sith with her, and in fact been cleared by her as a safe person, but that didn’t really make them close.
And claiming him as their lineage felt… convenient.
Then again, they only claimed him when he actually went checking up on any information the archives had on his old friends and master, and possibly Jocasta Nu had also realized the lineage connections at the same time. Obi-Wan had spent nearly a month with them and hadn’t looked. And neither had they.
He released his frustration and annoyance into the Force and tried to let it go completely. Their wedding would be witnessed by lots of different people Obi-Wan didn’t know, or didn’t know well, most of whom could claim him as distant family through the House of Mereel.
And too, it would be witnessed by his Jedi lineage, through his master.
His dar’buir demagolka master, as Jaster preferred to refer to her.
The whole group of them went to meet them, Jango driving Myles and Jon in one speeder, Obi-Wan driving Shana in a second speeder, and Grwwn, one of Jaster’s trusted Headhunters driving a third speeder with Tholme and Quinlan. They pulled up near the Jedi transport just as it was finishing landing, and when they hopped out, Jango took the lead, flanked by Myles and Jon, with Grwwn directly behind him. Obi-Wan and Tholme stood a little behind them, their padawans in their formal position, just behind them and to the side.
Honestly, Jango might recognize and know more of the Jedi coming off the settled craft than Obi-Wan did, given that he was on guard duty for their meditations for weeks.
Jango introduced himself as the child of the Mand’alor and bid them welcome, and Obi-Wan was proud of how calm and well spoken he was in such a formal situation. True, it wasn’t his first time meeting dignitaries today, but that practice didn’t diminish Obi-Wan’s feelings in the least.
Obi-Wan was quiet as he invited his speeder’s worth of people to set their small bags in the back and get settled. Obi-Wan got Yaddle, her current padawan, and two of her padawan many-great grand nieces. Yaddle introduced them, and her current padawan, Empatojayos, was a near human not much older than Shana. He was one Obi-Wan had noticed being stationed as Council Padawan during meetings. They all brightly welcomed Shana to the lineage and Obi-Wan smiled to see her blush a deeper shade of lavender while her lekku curled in appreciation and gratitude.
Something Yaddle said, however didn’t make sense.
The Master of Shadows had referenced Obi-Wan’s own master, and mis-gendered her. It was odd and jarring and he’d spent the ten minute speeder ride with his shields locked down and Shana chattering happily with the others.
It was not a mistake Yaddle would have made. Not intentionally. Not unintentionally. Before he went searching for information on his friends and old master, only some of which had anything other than names in the lineage registry, he had considered that he’d been abandoned by his master on purpose and perhaps even repudiated. Not that he could imagine his beloved master repudiating him. But he couldn’t imagine Master Bose abandoning him, either, until he realized that he’d fallen, and had no shields, and it had lasted for years… In that case?
That might have done it.
But then, Obi-Wan got the message from his remaining lineage and realized that Master Bose must not have repudiated him after all. Which wasn’t necessarily better, in his mind. It was at least a reason no one had rescued him in any kind of reasonable time frame.
And now Yaddle spoke of his master as if she were a man.
Which meant…
Very likely…
His master had repudiated him. And someone else had claimed him while he was still a padawan and perhaps tried to find him. Possibly someone he already had a bond with, though that wasn’t at all necessary - they might have just worked with one of his friends who had such a bond.
Still.
They hadn’t found him.
So really, all of these people really weren’t his lineage. Then again, he wasn’t part of Master Bose’s lineage anymore, and hadn’t been in some time. So, from a certain point of view, they absolutely were his lineage, he’d just been… adopted in absentia.
Obi-Wan made a mental note to request a copy of the exact lineage to confirm or deny his suspicions, and tried to move on.
When that failed, he actually released his emotional tumult into the Force and after the eighth time of doing so, felt better.
When they all got out of the speeders, Obi-Wan made wider introductions and then began to show them around, first where the wedding and celebrations would be, then the basics of Keldabe keep; the training grounds, gardens to meditate in, the refectory for meals, and finally their rooms, pointing out where Tholme and Quinlan were just down the hall.
Shana wanted to stay and continue talking with Yaddle and her lineage, and so Obi-Wan reminded her of when she needed to return to their quarters. He had half expected Jon to be in a similar way, but he wasn’t, and when Obi-Wan checked on him through their bond, he found a large amount of shielding and a small amount of distress.
Which meant there was probably a large amount of distress.
He sent a soothing wave and a little urge to release negativity into the Force if he could, and beckoned Jon to come with him, returning to the training yard and pulling him into a free spot.
Without speaking, he drew his lightsaber and set it to training mode. Jon did the same, as his lightsaber now had a training mode, mostly because Obi-Wan insisted he rebuild it so it would include one. They saluted each other, and then Jon attacked.
Obi-Wan made certain to remain out of any afternoon shadows, easier said than done, and Jon used them to good effect in the spar. The master maintained Soresu and saw that it was both an outward and inward sense of peace and patience he had at present, happy to let the young knight’s torrent of emotion crash on the rocks of his calm. Given the bit of a shock he’d just had, Obi-Wan was glad he’d managed to let the initial anguish of it go.
There would be more to deal with, soon, he was certain.
But it was okay. And it was safe to have the emotions here, and in the due course of time, let them go completely. They both were safe.
When Obi-Wan called for a pause and a water break, he finally asked the question.
“Do you want to talk about why you’re upset?”
“They couldn’t hide their horror at how young I am,” Jon said grimly.
“Whenever I think about it too much, I’m also horrified. And filled with righteous anger on your behalf. An’ya Kuro has a lot to answer for,” Obi-Wan stated simply.
Jon sighed.
“They’re not upset at you, Knight Antilles.”
“Why don’t you call me Jo’ika, like Jas’buir does?”
Obi-Wan sighed. “A few reasons. You worked very hard to earn your title, and to claim your name. I like to use it. I like to honor how far you’ve come.
“Also, it’s a pet name, which means it does mean ‘sweet Jon,’ and ‘darling Jon,’ but it also means ‘little Jon.’ While you are still growing and developing, I know it’s hard for you to hear being called little and young. I don’t particularly like such references made to me, either,” Obi-Wan said, grinning wryly.
“Also, Jaster’s adoption of you transfers when we marry. And I know you and Jango already call me O’buir, and that’s fine. And I will love you and care for you, no matter what, even if I weren’t about to marry Jaster. Still. It feels important, and big, the ritual that joins my life to Jaster’s, and also to yours and Jango’s, and to Shana in an even deeper way.
“And finally…” Obi-Wan paused to drink some water. “I like words. I like a super abundance of very descriptive words. For all of Mando’a’s strengths, it tends to shorten and simplify as a matter of course. Simple and short is perfect for battle, or a hunt, or any similarly perilous undertaking. But when I want to express my care and love for you, sometimes, my dearest Knight Antilles, I’m just going to need more words.”
Jon grinned at him. “You do like words. A lot.”
Obi-Wan grinned back. “I really do. And I’m a shadow archivist, which means I like all the words, in all the languages, preferably carved in stone with a wealth of meaning and hidden somewhere interesting I’m about to rediscover.” His grin turned wider.
Jon leaned into him and Obi-Wan leaned right back into Jon.
“Shall we go see if the paint on your new armor is dry?”
Jon nodded silently and finished his water.
On the short walk there, Jon spoke. “I’ve been thinking about declaring An’ya Kuro dar’buir. But if I do, I won’t have any Jedi lineage. And I don’t like that.”
It was different, of course, than one of his childhood friends grabbing him up for their lineage, but it was actually… quite similar to what he’d been thinking about for some time, really.
Which meant that Obi-Wan’s own lineage… well, it was as related to him as he wanted them to be. But it wasn’t fake. Not with what he was now very seriously considering doing.
The thoughts went by in a flash, and Obi-Wan snorted. “If you think I’m not grabbing you up for my own lineage, you’re sorely mistaken. I don’t care if I end up learning more from you than you learn from me. We’re both breaking a lot of silly rules anyway. We may as well break that one, too.”
Jon’s smile up at him was a luminous thing, indeed. “Thank you, Master,” he whispered happily.
Obi-Wan’s smile was so wide it crinkled the corners of his eyes. “You’re welcome, Padawan.”
“Rule eight, never go to Mandalore,” Jon said in a sing-song voice, high pitched and child-like. “Rule nine, never trust a bounty hunter. Rule ten, never trust an unknown Jedi Master.”
Obi-Wan chuckled. “You’re thinking of becoming a bounty hunter?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Jon affirmed. “A good way to find out things, I think. And to have a reason to be places. I want to get taller, first. Maybe next year, or the year after. Jango’s going to.”
Where Jango goes, Jon will follow.
“Are you going to join his squad?”
Jon snorted in derision. “No. Of course not. But I’ll probably go out with them, if the Force tells me to.”
“Very sensible. I like you giving him back up. And I like them giving you back up.”
“But they’re all so young,” Jon complained, of the young warriors who were technically older than him.
Obi-Wan grinned. “So is Jango. They’ll grow and learn. Or they won’t. We all have the option.”
“Jas’buir’s a lot older than you, isn’t he?” Jon asked, walking into the antechamber of the Forge where his armor was laid out for him by the Apprentices who had helped him paint it yesterday.
“Mmm, yes and no. Carbonite’s a tricky thing. The age his body thinks it is is older than the age my body thinks it is. And he has certainly lived more years out of carbonite than I have, so in that way, he has a variety of experiences I haven’t had time to have yet. And his body is fully and completely developed in a way that my body hasn’t finished yet.” Obi-Wan smiled at the look of Jon’s new chain mail tunic, painted in white with the beskar heart affixed directly to the mail. The chain mail would be easier to adjust than standard plate armor as he continued to grow, and in truth even Obi-Wan’s might need to get bigger, if he ever put on the muscle Jaster promised would come with training in hand-to-hand combat.
He continued speaking, still smiling as Jon put on his vambraces with the customization he’d ordered, including a long distance and local comm with an ear piece like Obi-Wan’s. “So there’s that. But I’ve told you what it was like in the carbonite, a bit.”
“It’s weird to think you could become a knight, and a master, just by sitting around and thinking about it,” Jon said as they walked out of the Forge.
“Well, the next time you have to have a major healing and are confined to bed, don’t underestimate the power of sitting around and thinking about things.”
Jon grew incredibly thoughtful. It was wonderful to see.
Jon was dressed in his new cin vhetin tunic and trousers, and he loved it. Jango was dressed in a new tunic with embroidery at the collar and elbow, and he was grumbling about it. Shana was thrilled at her new headdress which was made of leather and beskar. It already had the loop that affixed her padawan braid on it, and it had connections on the back to add chain mail to protect her lekku, not that in her training armor she had gotten that far, yet. The weight of the beskar on her forehead was enough for the next year, really, and the chainmail would be added bit by bit so she could get used to the weight.
In fact, she would be switching back and forth quite often between her old headdress and her armored one as she got used to the weight. Today she was only allowed to wear it for two hours before she came back to change.
It was the same with Jon, who was allowed to wear his vambraces and gorget all the time, but the mail tunic for only two hours a day.
The children were the only ones with new clothes, and Jon and Shana were the only ones with new armor.
Many cultures that had any kind of elaborate wedding ritual also required specialized garments for the participants, but this was not the Mandalorian way. There was no elaborate wedding ritual, just a vow of four promises, which could be said without witnesses, and didn’t even require the exchange of armor, however traditional it was to do so. And some clans tended to exchange armor as a part of the engagement process. And others didn’t exchange any at all.
For their part, Jaster and Obi-Wan, after making sure their children were properly attired and armed, just showed up at the right time and right place, and spoke their vows. There was no preamble. There was no introduction. They did lean in for a long touch of the forehead afterwards, wide smiles laying unerasable from their faces as their witnesses around them cheered, durasteel clanging, beskar alloys making a slightly more musical tone when struck, and pure beskar ringing like bells overtop the cacophony.
Then they both knelt down and took off their right greave and put on their partner’s greave.
Both mismatched pieces stuck out like sore thumbs. Jaster’s armor was black with red and gold highlights, and none on his greaves. So just black. Furthermore, though he had kutes in other colors, he tended to favor his black ones. Obi-Wan’s armor was one shade of unrelenting white for his cin vhetin, and of course all the rest of his clothes were also white.
It was odd.
Obi-Wan’s left leg would now be lighter than his right. As he peered carefully at the armor as he was putting it on, he realized that what he thought was decorative forging was actually customization. Jaster had a somewhat indistinguishable line of miniature rocket launchers flowing down both sides of each of his greaves.
They had tiny little rockets in them, smaller even than deathsticks. There were probably fifty on each shin. They all seemed loaded and perfectly launchable, only via Jaster’s helmet controls.
Fascinating.
His beloved really was armed from teeth to toes, from head to heels.
His husband.
Finally finishing with the last buckle, he joined Jaster in standing and took his hand.
Jaster leaned in for a kiss and somehow it caught Obi-Wan off guard. He wasn’t a shy person by any means, but he’d also not ever kissed someone on the lips in front of quite so many people.
There was more cheering, and more durasteel clanging, beskar alloy harmonies, and beskar ringing.
Jaster pulled back, grinning. He held up a hand to the crowd, which got slightly less rowdy.
He spoke first in Mando’a, and then again, in Basic. “Thank you for witnessing our vows. Go eat.”
Two of Jaster’s supercommandos were taking point in herding the superfluous Jedi to the food and being hospitable while doing so. Jango and Myles were in charge of the essential Jedi (Shana, Jon, Tholme, and Quinlan), making sure they were properly taken care of and didn’t get lost in the shuffle. And making sure Shana changed her headdress and Jon his chain mail at the two hour mark.
Obi-Wan and Jaster were left on their own. Except they were never alone. Their plates were never allowed to empty and their mugs of dark ale were never fully drained.
Each of their guests who had travelled in to witness their vows, including the Clan heads, the New Mandalorians, and the Jedi, all came by to introduce themselves and wish them well. Jaster’s supercommandos also took the opportunity to come by and each of them had a short and wildly improbable story to share about Jaster. Each story made Obi-Wan laugh, though that might have been the ale.
Partway through the night, he metabolized the majority of the drink and asked Jaster if he wanted the same.
“You can do that?” he asked, a stunned look on his face.
“For me, entirely. For you, to an extent. Do you want it?”
Jaster just stared at him. “No, I love having hangovers, and being too drunk to have good sex.”
Obi-Wan snorted at him and took one of his bare hands in both of his own, closing his eyes. Someone had approached the table, but he knew Jaster was holding them off for a moment.
“Oya!” Jaster breathed out intensely when he was finished. Then his beloved husband grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him in to a searing open mouthed kiss.
The people who had approached the table ended up whooping and laughing, banging their armor together.
It was a very good night.
Interlude
Shana Turila had obviously scored the best master that could be had in the entire Jedi Order. This was as obvious to her as it ought to be to everyone . He was Master Yaddle’s lineage holder. And Madam Nu’s! He was kind and soft spoken, fierce in battle, and he understood that reading was the only way anyone could get anywhere in life.
He wasn’t in favor of the traditional mid-riff bearing Twi’lek attire (it wasn’t Shana’s fault that all Ryls ran hot, and the rest of the Jedi ran cold and insisted on wearing innumerable layers!), but he did make sure her robes were thin linen with discreet lace insets of the same color to aid air flow and make sure she stayed cool. Her outer robe was a little looser fitting for just that reason. She had a belt rather than an obi sash, and there was lace above and below the belt so she didn’t just roast in her own heat and sweat with a cinched tunic.
Also her tunics were all sleeveless, which helped a great deal.
It did mean that when it came time for her vambraces, she’d need extra padding to protect her skin, and when she was finally fitted with a chain mail tunic, she’d probably have to have sleeves down to the length of the chain mail, but she’d need some sort of similar, maybe lace layer, to protect her lekku from the chain mail, too.
But at that time, once she was in chain mail full time, Master Obi-Wan said she could switch to a tunic with even more lace, as the mail itself would obscure her form.
“If you’re ever going to be slaver bait, my dear,” her master had said with an arched brow as they argued about it before the Quartermaster back at the Temple, “It’s going to be with great intention, and a plan. It will not be your standard outfit.”
Which… fair.
She sure was happy she’d been wearing the full tunic, trousers, and robe when she’d encountered Darth Flimsi-Cut, that was for certain. He didn’t need any encouragement to objectify her body. She was only eleven! She hadn’t even hit puberty yet! And she already had a sweetheart lined up, thank you very much!
Sith were icky.
Mandalorians, on the other lek, were awesome. It made more sense to her, now, why Jedi and Mandalorians didn’t always hit it off, but why Mandalorians would really dig trained Force Sensitives, even if they were Sith.
Mandalorians really liked battle-prowess. Which, admittedly, Jedi and Sith had in spades. And if you didn’t mess with their younglings (or younglings in general, really), or their hunts, they could get along with you. But if you were also courageous and effective in battle?
Pure. Mando. Bait.
So it made sense that a non-icky Sith (or at least a not overtly-icky Sith) might be appealing to the Mando’ade, whereas if Jedi got in the way of their hunts, it’d be a no-go situation.
They’d talked a lot about it, Shana and her brothers, especially after the other night’s long conversation, and Jas’buir being so clear and honest that he’d love them even if they Fell.
It just blew the mind, really.
And maybe it was attachment, but that was okay, because Jas’buir was about as Force Null as they came. If he got really angry or obsessive and acted on it, it only made him foolish, not evil.
And it was nice to know that if they really messed up, their parents’ first recourse wouldn’t be what that dar’manda dar’buir shabuir had told Jon, that she’d kill him herself.
Who says that, anyway?
Apparently she said it a lot, too. More than daily.
Shabuir.
But it was okay. Jon had her, now, and Master Obi-Wan, and Jango and Jas’buir.
Everything would be okay, now.
Everything was not okay.
Shana’s neck was killing her.
Maybe wearing the new headdress for two hours was a little too long?
Or maybe possibly she shouldn’t have pushed it almost to three by the time she actually changed out of it?
Maybe.
It’s just that it was so pretty, and fierce! Possibly she had an inordinate attachment to her new armored headdress that possibly she should meditate on and let go of, but in the meantime, she was just loving on it hardcore because it was so pretty. And fierce.
When she returned to the karyai and finally explained why her mood had tanked, Jango went to go fix up a grain pack in the quick-hot and had Jon trailing after him to watch how it was done.
That left her with Myles and Quin, lounging boots off among the pillows. Quin was describing the battle meditation Master had led them in days earlier. Even though there was no battle to follow, it was a wizard meditation to learn and she couldn’t wait to practice it again.
“Jon had never done it,” Quin threw out, glancing over at her. “Guess the dar’buir didn’t know or didn’t care.”
Shana snorted. “Or she never cared to wait until battle came to her,” she said, her tone filled with exactly what she thought of that.
Myles looked curious. “Why would you want to wait until the battle came to you? Wouldn’t you want to press your advantage if you could?”
“As a Mandalorian, maybe. As a Jedi, maybe not,” Quin said.
Myles looked confused.
Shana jumped in. “If you have already tried negotiation and diplomacy and they’ve already failed, then sure. But even so, a Jedi doesn’t strike first. A Jedi doesn’t strike the unarmed. A Jedi doesn’t preempt the battle.”
Myles looked more confused. “That… seems… counter… intuitive,” he said.
“Yeah, so,” Quin started. “A mature, experienced Mando versus a mature, experienced Jedi? And they’re both really good? That’s the closest to a fair fight a Jedi is going to have. Sith are a little stronger, because of the Dark side and all the rituals and stuff. But most of the galaxy isn’t made up of Mandalorians and Sith. Compared to most of the galaxy, a Jedi is wildly overpowered. It takes, like, an entire army to take one of us down when we’re experienced. It’s just not a fair fight.”
Myles looked even more confused. “Why in the name of all the stars would you want to fight fair?”
Shana didn’t really know what to say about that, and was relieved when Jango and Jon came back into the room. Jon murmured instructions to her about being careful so the pack of heated grains wouldn’t burn her skin. She smiled up at him as he tenderly laid it over her shoulders and neck. When she groaned in happiness he smiled his tiny smile and sat next to her.
Jango explained.
“It’s all about honor, Myles. They express their sense of honor differently, and in a way that keeps them from acting out of negative emotion, which is toxic to them on a personal level. Once the fight is on, they don’t fight fair. And if they’ve decided it’s okay to kill you, you’re already dead.”
Comprehension dawned.
“Also, we can feel it when you die,” Jon pointed out. “It’s awful from a distance and it’s worse up close. Even if you’re a bad person, so long as you’re not a darksider or a Sith, every time someone dies, the entire galaxy gets just a little dimmer, at least for a while. And if we’re the one who has killed you, that’s a double grief to bear.”
Shana thought of the slaver space station and had to release the confusing ball of pain, anguish, and grim satisfaction into the Force, just like Master Obi-Wan and Master Tholme had encouraged her. Just because she hadn’t seen it with her eyes didn’t mean she hadn’t felt it in the Force. They’d killed over a hundred sentients that day. And they… they had sort of struck first.
She breathed in and out twice before she was calm again. Emotion, yet peace.
Meanwhile the conversation had flowed on.
Quin was assuring Myles that negative emotion, when not dealt with, was super toxic to all Force Sensitives, really. In the way, maybe, that deathsticks and spice were toxic. Toxic, but also addictive.
“Nobody sane wants to enter that cycle of desperate addiction to the thing that’s going to kill you. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen anyway,” Quin pointed out philosophically.
“Anger’s like shit,” Myles said. “It’s going to happen no matter what you do. It’s not like deathsticks and spice, which you can actually avoid.”
“But do you want to wallow in your own shit?” Jon asked. “No moreso do we want to wallow in our own anger.”
Shana looked at Jon in awe.
That was brilliantly put.
Back down at the party with her old headdress on and her neck feeling better thanks to her considerate brothers and that brilliant little grain pack, Myles and Jango were teaching them battle sign and Shana and Jon were teaching them Ryl’lek, word for word until they ran out of similar word-concepts.
That’s when it got really interesting. Mando’a had some great swear words, but none of them were in battle sign. Ryl didn’t have many spoken swear words, but it had plenty in the sign language of the lekku. One of her cultural mentors back in the Temple once confided that many Force Nulls used their lekku primarily for sex and swearing, but of course a Jedi’s senses were enhanced by their lekku, so that didn’t really count for them. But it was part of the culture, and so as a parting gift before she left with her new master, her mentor had given her all the Ryl’lek swear words she knew!
Ah, solidarity.
Some of them were very hard to mimic without lekku, but there was always a workaround with hands and fingers, because (though it was utterly horrible to imagine), sometimes lekku got damaged or partially amputated, and then a person just had to work with what was left, you know?
Also, of course, almost all the Mando’a swears were about honor, intelligence, or battle prowess. Ryl swears were more expansive. In Ryl you could insult someone in just about every manner possible! Stuff the Mando’ade just didn’t care about, like looks, attractiveness, sexual history, parentage, propensity to sell your neighbor’s kids off during the seasonal slavery runs, and bad cooking.
There were a lot of swear words about bad cooks. If a Ryl didn’t show some aptitude to cooking by the time they were ten, it was deemed a lost cause and it was better for the family honor to just ban them from the stove. Her mentor had pointed out that since her master and his intended weren’t Ryl, it was probably okay to admit that she hadn’t mastered cooking and still try, but to take it easy and always work with a more experienced partner, if she did need to provide meals beyond reconstituting rations and making tea.
“So, wait, can you cook?” Myles asked while they tried a new kind of pastry filled with some sort of marinated meat. Shana wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew it wasn’t mynock.
She missed mynock kebab something fierce. With a little spicy peanut sauce on the side? So good.
With the question, however, came the flood of embarrassment. Her face was bright cobalt, she was certain of it.
She swallowed hard, the pastry suddenly turning to stone in her throat.
Definitely not Ryl. A Twi’lek would never ask. Well, at least as a Jedi she wouldn’t have had many opportunities to learn to cook, right? Her mentor said she should never be embarrassed by her lack, but it really was a lack. And it was a cultural thing she hadn’t been able to sort through, unlike all the rest.
“If anyone ever casts aspersions about your inability to cook, Shana, you square your shoulders, look them right in the eye, and declare with absolute certainty that your reconstituted ration bread is absolutely to die for. And if they’re Ryl, then you slap them and call them a slanderer.”
She coughed a little and cleared her throat. She’d laughed a little when her mentor had told her that. Shana certainly wasn’t laughing now.
But this wasn’t exactly that situation. It was just a question. Probably, maybe an innocent one. It was Myles after all. He was a bit of an emotional doof. Definitely not an empath, even if he was nice.
Dire measures were maybe not called for, not with her brothers and Quin and Myles.
“Um, I haven’t exactly had the time or opportunity to learn,” she said, realizing about four heartbeats later that it was a totally defensive answer.
Which made her blush even harder.
Dammit.
“Also,” she added, “never ask a Twi’lek that,” she murmured.
Myles still didn’t seem to get it.
Jango, oblivious, spoke. “If you want to learn, Jas’buir can teach you. He’s a really good cook, when he has time. His cooking even makes long hyperspace trips less boring.”
“I’d like to learn, too,” Jon said quietly, beside her. “I know how to select ration bars, and how to barter with food vendors. That’s the extent of my food procurement abilities.”
“I can hunt. I know how to skin and roast and even smoke my kill. It was part of my verd’goten prep ,” Myles said, still oblivious. “I could teach you.”
Shana had a sneaking suspicion that none of what she could learn from Mando’ade would technically count as cuisine on Ryloth, but cooking was cooking, right? And whether or not she could make a souffle rise, or make mayonnaise gel, or get her pastry as light and flaky as air… probably knowing how to smoke meat on a long strange mission would be more useful. Likewise, knowing how to make a gigantic pot of hearty hyperspace stew. It tasted perfectly good, even if it wasn’t haute cuisine.
She gave her companions a tentative smile and accepted their help, and their suggestions.
Maybe this would be okay, after all.
“I’ve been thinking,” Obi-Wan said, as something of an introduction. Jaster was kissing his neck and had grabbed his ass in a very satisfying manner. They were alone in their small suite of rooms, their children watched by others. It was the night they had exchanged their wedding vows.
“Then I’m doing something wrong,” Jaster groaned against his throat, having just unlatched his gorget.
“Well, I don’t want to prioritize sex over conversation, Jaster. We talked about that,” he pointed out, releasing the maglocks on his husband’s breastplate.
Jaster groaned again. “Tonight would be a great night to prioritize sex, Ob’ika.” He was trying to undo Obi-Wan’s vambraces, but only using one hand each. Jaster was having mixed results with that, while also trying to kiss Obi-Wan’s neck.
“Mm, this might be important.”
“If it’s not important, what do I get?” Jaster asked, managing one of the vambraces. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan had removed Jaster’s back plate.
“Um, I… I’m not… uh, what do you want?”
“Your undivided attention to maximal orgasm procurement.”
“In quantity or quality?”
“Yes!” All Jaster’s other attempts to focus on removing his armor melted away and instead his beloved kissed him, hard.
Obi-Wan whimpered, his brain momentarily dribbling out his ears. A shiver raced up his spine. His fingers dug into the black body glove Jaster wore that did almost nothing to mask the wide bunching muscles across his torso.
Jaster wrenched his mouth away. “Take your chain mail off,” he said, his voice caught in a gasp of air.
There was no dignified way to do it, and the least dignified way involved Jaster helping.
Obi-Wan took a step back and flipped backwards, landing on one hand and balancing, making sure he didn’t kick his husband in the process. He shimmied a little and the chainmail slid down without his belt securing it. He shimmied a moment or three more and it was all by his elbows and neck, and sliding onto the floor.
And then it was free, and he righted himself again. He put his chain mail on his armor stand and pulled his boots off while he was at it. Jaster was already doing the same.
“What did you want to talk about?” Jaster asked, his voice slightly hoarse. “Is it about sex, at least?”
“Ah, no,” Obi-Wan said, beginning to strip out of his tunics before Jaster stopped him.
“Don’t you dare. That’s my job when we’re finished.” Instead he pointed at his remaining armor that Obi-Wan could more easily remove, and he crouched down and began removing it. “Talk,” he said.
Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at his tone, which was a bit terse.
“Well, I’d been thinking about Jon-”
“Please leave our ade out of this moment. I’m begging you.”
Obi-Wan glared up at Jaster, handing over a piece of thigh armor. He continued despite his husband’s plea. “I’d been thinking about my encouragement to Jon to truly think through all the rules he’d been given and deeply evaluate them to decide whether or not it is wise to follow them.”
“And?” Jaster’s tone was even, at least.
“I’ve decided that the Master of Shadow’s injunction that my mission should be secret from you does not make sense and is not wise. And I won’t be following it. The injunction. Not the mission. I’ll do that, of course.”
Jaster blinked down at him. Wordlessly he pulled Obi-Wan back up to his feet and stepped into the karyai, still holding his hands.
Obi-Wan looked into his eyes and saw his seriousness reflected. He felt it in Jaster’s emotions, the annoyance fading away. The lust was still high, but something else was blooming, something sweet and lovely that Obi-Wan didn’t quite have a name for.
“What’s your mission, then?” he asked, sinking down into the cushions and smiling as Obi-Wan followed him down to straddle his lap.
Jaster smirked and pulled him in hard, shifting another pillow behind himself and wiggling down a little to give him room to rut just exactly in the perfect place.
“I am to investigate and report on the physical and political feasibility of reopening and reoccupying the Jedi Temple on Mandalore.”
Jaster just stared at him for a moment while the incredulousness slowly built in the air around them. He blinked slowly, allowing his emotions to register on his face.
“That had to be a secret from me?”
“Upon reflection, I also found it ridiculous. I’ve considered any number of reasons and rationale and I find them all ridiculous. I understand the need for secrecy in general, but it’s not like I can poke around the Temple without you knowing about it, or sorting out an accurate appraisal of the political climate without getting your honest opinion. I mean, maybe you could have known I was asking, and just not known it was also a mission. I suppose I could have framed it as my own grand idea, and that’s the only way forward I could really think of to get all the information I needed, but it was just so disingenuous. I mean, yes, I’m fine with lying, and using the absolute and utter truth to mislead when necessary, especially in order to do things like free slaves and undermine tyranny. But I didn’t want to do any of that with you. And I didn’t want you to think that I had one more good idea that wasn’t truly mine. I had nightmares of you attributing things to my doing that were actually all just secret missions I couldn’t tell you about. That this one would lead to the next, and the next, and the next.
“I would much prefer you know me for who I truly am, and help me when you feel you can, and draw the firm boundary when you ought to against any and all shenanigans that you think aren’t in the best interest for your people. And how can you do that if I just lie to you?”
Jaster’s ardor had cooled just a bit, but that bright, lovely blossoming emotion tasted like trust and sounded like loyalty, and felt like love.
His husband pulled his head down and closer, touching foreheads with him. He sighed, and it was a soft thing.
“Thank you for telling me, Master Kenobi. I cherish the trust you’ve placed in me, and I won’t make you regret it.”
Obi-Wan took a deep breath. “It is who I needed to be, Mand’alor Mereel. I would not have the official start of our entwined lives be so besmirched with lies. Seems a bad omen.”
“I look forward to exploring the Temple with you. And discovering exactly where it is. We can discuss details, and political difficulties next week, yes?”
Obi-Wan smiled. “Thank you, Mand’alor. That’s very kind of you. I’ll clear my schedule.”
Jaster grinned. “Are we good here? Done with the meeting?”
“Unless you had other unresolved business you wanted to bring up?”
Jaster scoffed. “Then this meeting is over, and yes, I have an unresolved issue to bring up,” he said. He bucked his hips slightly and reached for the tunic tie on Obi-Wan’s right hip.
Jaster was undressing him. He didn’t care about that. What Obi-Wan cared about was undressing Jaster. A single zip from neck to groin unveiled the gorgeous view. Obi-Wan pulled it down slowly, teasing himself. Just a thin slice of dusky dark, soft skin became visible and his breath caught.
Yes, yes, he saw it all this morning.
Yes, yes, he’d had Jaster’s glorious cock stuffed in his mouth just this morning, and then sat on his face because nothing woke Obi-Wan up better than Jaster’s tongue in his cunt. Not even tea could compare. He was down right chipper on the mornings they had enough time and enough privacy for sex.
And even last night sleeping in the karyai with their children, they still retreated to their private room as the sun rose, and far, far before their children would want to stir, to have a little private time to themselves.
Very good self care, was regular sex with a valued partner.
And even so, the slow, delicious unveiling of his husband was a sheer delight.
Zip entirely undone, Obi-Wan explored the tapered opening with his fingers. Heat. Softness. Crisp hair.
With the same tentativeness, the same gentle touch of his fingers, he also explored his Force Presence. Heat. Light. Pulsing emotion.
Jaster gasped and breathed out invective in Mando’a.
Jaster clearly tried to reciprocate, but his touch was clumsy, though welcome.
Obi-Wan grinned. “Yes, darling. Just like that. Try it again, but gentler this time. Just brush against the edge at first.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing, but stars, I want more,” Jaster ground out, his hands fisting in Obi-Wan’s half removed tunics. His eyes were clenched shut as he was clearly trying to focus.
Obi-Wan guided him. “It’s just like learning to walk.”
He focused on his husband, and the feel of him in the Force. “Light brushes, yes, just like that," he said, his breath hitching.
"Is this-” Jaster broke off in a hiss for a moment before he composed himself again. “-Is this how Jedi have sex?"
“No idea. Never kriffed anyone from the Order," Obi-Wan said. “It is how we say hello."
“WHAT?"
Obi-Wan dissolved into giggles. The moment was broken and they both sat back in the cushions. Obi-Wan fell a little to the side, one leg curled up beneath them, and now next to Jaster rather than on his lap.
His new husband looked a little shocked.
“It's not sexual,” he assured him. “In fact, the only time I've done it like this is with you. Normally, with Jedi, there’s etiquette involved. One doesn’t wish to be rude about such things. Usually it's a very tentative brush up against someone's shielding. Non-invasive. Like a handshake, except you can do it from a distance, and you can let a few emotions leak from the shields if you like."
“Wait,” Jaster said, still looking thrown and slightly addled. In fact, he looked more addled than the one time Obi-Wan had thrown him in a spar. “There's a lot there. How much of a distance?"
“If it's someone you know well, and perhaps have a bond with, when they exit hyperspace near the planet you're on, or perhaps hit low orbit. For others, if they're not hiding themselves in some way, a few kilometers out, perhaps."
Jaster blinked in shock.
“You can feel the kara-touched that far away?"
Obi-Wan shrugged one shoulder. “Beskar muffles the Force Signature, but not the emotion, so that's a different variable. But if I’m deep in meditation, I can feel all the Force Sensitives in the galaxy. Give or take the beskar’gam. They shine like the stars on a dark night. Kept me sane in carbonite.”
"Is that because you're so strong?” Jaster asked in all seriousness.
"I'm not that strong,” Obi-Wan argued. He didn’t want Jaster to get a skewed view of him. It was the reason he’d wanted to be honest about his mission. “Only slightly above average at last check, though it is about what you do with it, not really the raw strength you have.”
"Average… for a Jedi,” Jaster clarified.
Obi-Wan shrugged and silently gave him that.
"Perhaps you should be retested, Ob’ika.” Jaster, for the record, still had his kute unzipped all the way down. It was still baring tempting stretches of his strong body, and glancing at his chest (only very occasionally) was making Obi-Wan’s focus a hard won thing.
He was not actually drooling. It was just a bit of extra saliva. You know, the sort of thing that told him he had extra, and shouldn’t he be licking his lover?
"Will you also consent to be tested?” he asked, focusing. He had asked before, but Jaster hadn’t been very interested.
Jaster sighed and tugged Obi-Wan back on his lap. "Teach me how to shield?”
"Of course,” he responded immediately. He didn't say anything about the avoidant non-answer, and Obi-Wan didn't push. He had heard him perfectly well, and would be thinking about it. That was enough.
And clearly, Jaster was also refocusing on their primary purpose for the evening, because Obi-Wan was spread out over his thighs again.
Clearly.
Still. Jaster looked at him. Expectantly.
Obi-Wan blinked, slowly.
Then the credit dropped.
"What, now?”
Jaster gave a little quirk of his eyebrows as if to say, what better time than now?
Obi-Wan knew his husband valued education and absorbing new skills, but…
But he’d just pulled him back on his lap! Was this fair? This wasn’t fair!
Obi-Wan gave him a flat look. "We have the whole night set aside to fuck each other absolutely silly, and you want to meditate instead?”
“You’re the one who broke the mood first,” Jaster calmly pointed out. From directly underneath him.
“So we didn’t start out our life together with lies!” Obi-Wan protested.
“That wasn’t the interruption I was referring to,” Jaster pointed out dryly.
Obi-Wan searched his mind. And then he recalled. “Well it is how we say hello,” he muttered mutinously.
Jaster grinned at him. “This is important, Ob’ika. This is your culture. And I’m just kara-touched enough to be able to participate, and I hadn’t realized how important it was. I want to know how your culture greets one another so I can greet you properly. So teach me how to shield, and then teach me how to say hello.”
Obi-Wan blinked repeatedly, his perspective shifting radically. “Oh.” And then he thought about it a little. “Oh,” he said, sighing and leaning in to kiss Jaster silly, just because he loved him that much.
Everyone’s shields looked different. A light touch wasn’t enough to get a good picture of them, but if you were more thorough about it, you could get a good sense without being terribly rude, invasive, or trying to actually penetrate them.
Obi-Wan’s, like many Jedi he presumed, actually resembled the Room of a Thousand Fountains, though perhaps just a bit more wild, and after a few hundred years of working on them, he also added several layers of traps. (If one followed the path, or any particularly beautiful part of the garden, one would be lost in his mind for just as long as Obi-Wan felt it necessary to keep them there.)
Jaster Mereel’s shielding, when he settled on an image that worked… Jaster used the actual Manda as his shield.
The entire collective soul of Mandalorians who had gone before.
And good luck finding him in the bustling crowd.
It was like a bustling marketplace, approaching his shields, with people going to and fro, calling out, harking their wares. It was like Keldabe, at festival time, multiplied by one hundred, but with Mandalorians from all ages, and all different armor types.
And when Jaster Mereel dropped his shields for Obi-Wan, the crowd just parted. And there he stood, in his beskar’gam, with the very mis-matched white grieve on his right leg, helmet under his left arm.
They hadn’t gotten to the formation of traps, that was an advanced maneuver for later, but it was so very clear how they could happen in the armed and armored crowd.
And so, from Jaster’s perspective, when Obi-Wan’s shields dropped, Jaster was suddenly in the correct garden room with him, filled with three breath-taking waterfalls, flowering bushes, tall trees and a lily pond filled with large, peaceful fish swimming in meditative patterns.
And from Obi-Wan’s perspective in Jaster’s mind, they were in a crowded marketplace full of dead people.
Obi-Wan was fairly certain that Jaster was getting the better end of this bargain, but who was he to criticize someone else’s shielding metaphor?
They ended the meditation, then practiced being fully shielded, but letting down a layer of shielding, just enough to let some emotions through.
For Jaster, it ended up looking like adjusting a comm frequency in his HUD. (For Obi-Wan it had always seemed like being within calling range in the gardens.)
And then they practiced holding their shielding, brushing up tentatively against someone else to get a feel of their shielding, and then sending a gentle welcome message.
Except that Mando’a was Jaster’s first language. And greetings in Mando’a, while often meant in the kindest way, were actually quite brutal. Jaster had to work a little harder, perhaps, to filter out the sardonic cynicism native to Mando’a and to clarify his intentions without benefit of words. But he got it.
He got it.
And if Obi-Wan wasn’t very much mistaken, he would be practicing frequently.
After a long, glorious session of being eaten out so thoroughly Obi-Wan debatably qualified as Jaster’s dessert, Kenobi was finally being railed as hard as he could take, which coincidentally was as hard as Jaster could give him.
He was on his knees. His hands were braced against the back edge of the karyai. Jaster’s hands were like bands of durasteel around his hips. And Jaster’s thick beskad was hollowing him out in the most delectable fashion. Every thrust hit so deep in this position, even if it meant that Obi-Wan didn’t get to watch him, didn’t get to see his glorious body, didn’t get to kiss whatever was in reach.
Oh, but it was hard to feel bad about that, not when Jaster was muttering in Mando’a with every thrust. Obi-Wan mostly understood. Yes, beloved. Yes, darling. My beautiful darling. My beautiful Jedi. My beautiful husband. There were other things he didn’t quite catch, words he didn’t quite know yet, but Obi-Wan got the gist.
And Obi-Wan just felt so full. His orgasm wasn’t close, not yet, but it was all so delicious. The glorious, raw fucking felt so beautiful, so good, so incandescently marvelous, it was hard to not moan uncontrollably. Still. The children were in the apartment. He did his best to stay silent.
But his breath betrayed him.
And then Jaster shifted, his cock hitting that spot deep inside, and Obi-Wan lost what little sense he had.
It was in the middle of Obi-Wan begging Jaster for more, harder, now, please, that the knock sounded on their door.
It was like a bucket of cold water.
“ME’BANA?!” Jaster bellowed. His voice was low, dark, and irredeemably sexy. Obi-Wan couldn’t help but clench down hard at the sound, and that in turn made Jaster hiss and smack his ass.
Which made Obi-Wan clench down harder, again, and spasmodically several times in a row as his whole body shook.
Get a hold of yourself, Kenobi!
“Um, sorry to bother you, buire,” they heard Jon call through the door, mostly in Basic. “Alor Skirata said not to bother you with this, because you’d kill us. Master Tholme said Obi-Wan at least would want to know. Everyone’s okay, though. Nobody died.”
Another metaphorical bucket of cold water dumped over their heads.
Jaster staggered away from him and when Obi-Wan shakily looked back, trying to moderate his breathing, his physical response, and his expectations, he saw Jaster sprawled back in the cushions, obviously trying to do the same.
Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “What happened, Jon?” he called out, crawling out of the karyai and toward the folded pile of sleep shirts and trousers. He threw a set at Jaster and started pulling on his own.
“There was another assassination attempt. But the assassins were subdued by the Lineage. So, um, they’re all alive, and Alor Skirata and Master Tholme are interrogating them. But, um, they don’t have arms anymore.”
Obi-Wan held out the black robe and slipped it over Jaster’s shoulders just before Jaster held his white fur robe out for him. Both robes were held firmly shut over very hard erections as they went to be with their children.
The assassination attempt may be foiled, and they would check in with that in the morning. But for now, they needed to be present to their three beautiful and undoubtedly rattled children who were now dealing with some of the fallout to assassination attempt number three, no matter that the first two were only in visions.
Obi-Wan dumped as much of his tumultuous emotion into the Force as he could, over and over as he dressed and walked to the door, buttoning his robe closed.
He hopped on one foot, putting a thick pair of socks on as Jaster opened the door and began herding the children back to the large karyai in the main room.
Obi-Wan followed, consoling himself.
Being interrupted was not pleasant, but Tholme was right, and Skirata clearly had no children of his own. There was no scenario he could think of where he would prioritize sex over making sure their children were well and feeling safe and calm.
And so, he joined the cuddle of bodies and the soft, soothing conversations began as Jaster went to the kitchen and started making a round of warm, spiced milk for everyone.
And it was good.
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