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The festivities were a good cover for Obi-Wan, despite his personal feelings about the loud noises and crowds of people.
Emperor Palpatine had been trying to dog his steps lately with the successive squads of soldiers sent after the Great Wizard, though Obi-Wan had easily evaded the majority with a quick command to Cody to change house directions and a spin of the door dial. Still, few managed to slip his radar and still appear at his doorstep on the days he did turn the dial to the storefront, and some lucky bastards even found him during his market walks with Ahsoka.
Those particular men, Obi-Wan had the vicious pleasure of turning into tiny frogs as a message for Palpatine; Ahsoka had found the transformed frogs amusing to dangle while they croaked in desperate fear.
Still, it wasn't like Obi-Wan could shut himself fully off from the greater world, much as he wanted to. They needed food to eat, for one; and money to make for said food, for another. Ahsoka gave him enough lectures on the matter, battening his protests down with pointed logic and ferocious fussing despite her diminutive stature. Cody had laughed quite heartily at the image of the Great Wizard of Coruscant, cowering in his chair before a puffed-up fourteen-year-old girl.
And for Obi-Wan, he needed to find The Man, and he couldn't very well find The Man locked away in his castle—though he did check, just to be thorough.
The current festival was for celebrating the brave men and women who had made it back from the Empire's first successful battle against their opposing forces, or whatever drivel Palpatine had the news couriers send out. The public weren't told of the realities of the war their emperor had set their country in course for, but Obi-Wan knew. What Palpatine wanted wasn't to defend their country's honor or their borderlines from some encroaching evil—they were the evil. And that was exactly the reason why Obi-Wan wanted nothing to do with the emperor.
Still, bitter as Obi-Wan was about their impending war front, he could not help but find himself siphoning the joy and revelry from the crowds. Just a bit, not too much to make anybody notice the dip in their moods, but potent enough to buoy his own spirits for the day.
A pair of girls, dressed up in their best finery for the celebration, crashed into his path, pulling Obi-Wan out of his brooding. He steadied them with a firm hand and a discreet twirl of a finger, just so they didn't actually brush against him, and the girls titter in sheepish apology. One of them eyes him with a surprising amount of calculation, and her demeanor shifts her giggles to a little more coquettish, dropping a hand to graze against her bared clavicles.
Obi-Wan smiled winsomely, tossing his hair back in a sufficiently rakish manner, and the girls blushed with due interest. Just as one of them started to suggest he stay with them to celebrate the rest of the day, Obi-Wan excused himself away with an apologetic smile and a wink, citing his urgent matters to meet with some people. The chorus of disappointed goodbyes trailed after him, but Obi-Wan ignored it easily, slotting the encounter away as forgettable.
He had no such plans, of course; rather, his exact marching orders were to walk around the town square for a good hour or so and bring back some yummy treats, as dictated by young Ahsoka, and to stop clouding the house with his unfortunate brooding, as per Cody's blunt words. Obi-Wan took it with grace, knowing Ahsoka wanted time to herself to practice the containment spells he'd had her start on and Cody wanted him to stop working his footsteps into the floorboards of his room with his pacing. The walk would at least help with the nebulous worry consuming over both him and Cody.
Obi-Wan made two rounds through all the available open stands, helping himself to the tankards of light ale proffered by generous patrons and the sweet cakes the newest town bakery was handing out to promote their business. The taste of buttercream frosting and mellow cake sponge dissolved airily in his mouth, and Obi-Wan made a note to bring back some extras for Ahsoka and Cody to try. All around him, people were hustling about, waving their country flags in open support; some even went up to the on-duty soldiers stationed about to share ales, to enthusiastic response.
Those men, Obi-Wan steered clear off, weaving a notice-me-not spell to help with his anonymity. It was a weak spell, something he could easily dissolve should the situation require more firepower, but it would at least draw their eyes away from him despite his rather ostentatious robes and brightly colored hair. Cody had sneered (as much as he could with only flames for a mouth), grumbling Obi-Wan could help his own cause by not choosing to dress so flashily, but why should Obi-Wan punish himself in the process?
Near the end time of his allotted hour of merriment, Obi-Wan started edging himself towards the outer rim of the processions, only to catch the chilling shiver in his spine that accompanied the presence of Sidious's creatures in the area. He darted his eyes around, looking for the dark oil-spill shadows, and just as quickly turned his attention away to a conveniently timed song when one of the creatures looked back in his direction. Inwardly, he sighed to himself. At the very least, it didn't look like the shadows were looking to attack him out in the open with all the civilians around him, but they were bound to lose their patience eventually.
Sidious, the ever-present thorn in his side. Almost as irritating as Palpatine, rather. Obi-Wan often had the passing thought of locking them both in a small room to fight each other to the death for who would win Obi-Wan's body. Certainly, it would make his life just a smidgen easier to not have two crazy powerful people trying to gain control over him.
Obi-Wan smiled at nothing in particular and casted a slightly stronger spell this time. A distraction spell, just with enough juice to pull the shadows' attention away for him to make his timely exit. Anything bigger, and it would cause them to converge on him with all due prejudice and no thought for the innocent townspeople, and Obi-Wan had no way of knowing what kind of violence they'd be willing to wreak.
He stepped into the alleyways just as a bright burst of magical fireworks started setting off in the opposite direction of him, drawing both the square's and the shadows' attentions. This would only buy him a minute or two before the creatures realized he'd escaped, but it would be enough for a head start.
Obi-Wan kept a wary eye out as he hurried down the narrower alley paths, dodging the stray drunks. Then, as he turned round a corner, the sight and sound of a young man being harassed by a pair of soldiers brought Obi-Wan up. He frowned, noting the way the young man's shoulders hunched in then squared out, as if drawing himself ready for a fight, and the ill-humored smiles turning malicious on the solders' faces.
"Don't you want to hang out with us for a few drinks, lad? You don't look like you're in any sort of hurry," one of the soldiers cajoled, the tilt of his face particularly hungry. His comrade, with an arm slung around his shoulders, leaned in to the young man's face with a wolfish grin.
"Yeah, sweetheart, you should help us celebrate. You know the festival is supposed to be honoring us soldiers, don't you?"
The men sneered down at their prey, but from Obi-Wan's point of view, it looked like they were about to have their faces met with the man's pointed fists with how tightly they were balling up at his sides. Obi-Wan's lips quirked up without permission, but he watched with more deliberate interest now, hiding his own body safely with another notice-me-not spell to give him a few minutes more reprieve from the shadows. He stepped further toward the three, just in case he needed to step in, though the ferocity positively radiating from the man's frame did much to soothe Obi-Wan's misgivings.
"Is that right?" The young man spoke finally, unimpressed and pointed. It was a harder voice than Obi-Wan originally assumed, and oddly familiar at that. Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes. "You lot who've spent the entire festival carousing around like a gang of drunks, belligerent as the rest of them, and pushing yourselves onto whoever looks pretty enough for your attentions? I didn't know we were wasting our empire's taxes on such a sad bunch of wastrels."
"W-wastrels!" The soldier closest to the young man sputtered, pulling his arm away from his friend to step into the young man's space, baring teeth. "You've got a lot of nerve for someone who's about to get his face done in, boy."
The young man laughed, sharp, and tilted his head with condescension so strong, even Obi-Wan could feel the derision from where he stood. "Such big men you are, with such thin pride. Why not stop harassing people if you cannot handle the truth?"
"You—"
Obi-Wan quickly called out to them, pulling the men's attention to him and staying the pulled-back arm of the soldier. The young man turned with them, facing Obi-Wan fully for the first time, and the face stopped Obi-Wan short.
"Oh." It was him, the one Obi-Wan had been looking for all this time: his angel. The man with the prettiest blue eyes and downy blond hair and the pink lips that said Obi-Wan's name with such yearning, he could not forget even decades after. "It's you."
"Who the hell are you?" one of the men snarled, briefly-curbed temper once again hot. "You some friend of this floozy's?"
"F-floozy? Fuck you," the young man said, pulling his eyes away from Obi-Wan's struck face to scowl at the soldiers. "Now, who's the one with a lot of nerve? You were the losers coming onto me, shithead."
Obi-Wan's angel had decidedly a dirtier mouth than he'd anticipated. He drew up to them, calmly taking his place next his angel, and smiled at the soldiers. They eyed him with similarly dark expressions, hands gripping onto the handles of their concealed weaponry, ready to pull at the drop of a dime.
"Now, now, gentlemen, let's not be so hasty," Obi-Wan soothed, holding his hands out in a calming motion. His angel grimaced, but kept silent, warily assessing him. Obi-Wan noted the twitch in his brows, and the off-put turn of his lips, and bit back the urge to tease. "There's no need for violence on such a joyous day, right?"
"Piss off unless you'd like to get a taste of what this boy is about to get," one of the soldiers threatened, pulling the handle of a concealed gun out his holster far enough for Obi-Wan to see.
His angel scoffed, taking a step back as if to ready himself, and the soldiers lock in on the movement as a unit, swiveling their grins at him with such malice. The other soldier flapped a hand dismissively at Obi-Wan to shoo him off, expecting Obi-Wan to concede. His angel gave him a worried glance, and clearly deeming him too soft for the brawl about to transpire, shifted his weight so Obi-Wan would be behind his taller frame instead, despite Obi-Wan's solid build.
"Leave him alone, he's not a part of this," the young man said, and Obi-Wan felt at once both the strongest flush of affection for his angel, who would readily step in to defend a stranger, and the oddly petulant pinch of disappointment that he would be so easily dismissed as a weak man. He'll have to ponder on this feeling later, he decided.
"Alright, alright, why don't we just," Obi-Wan interrupted, placing a proprietary hand on his angel's shoulder, and gestured at the soldiers, "stop what we're doing and go on about our day, shall we?" As he spoke, the soldiers immediately straightened up, much to their own surprise, and about-faced with a sharp click of their heels. The young man gaped at the sudden change, and snapped his eyes to Obi-Wan's smiling face.
"What the hell—"
"Hey, what's—"
Obi-Wan gestured again with the touch of a lightly-powered marionette spell, and away the soldiers marched off, prompt and against their loud wishes. He set the spell to release in about ten minutes' time, but at least by then, they will be far away from the square and his angel will be safe.
"How'd you do that?" his angel asked, wary. His shoulder was tense under Obi-Wan's hand, and obligingly, Obi-Wan takes it away with a much more genuine smile. "Was that… magic? Who are you?"
Who are you? Obi-Wan wanted to ask back. Now that they were alone, Obi-Wan knew for sure this man was not his angel—not quite. He looked younger, more untried and untouched than his angel had, like he had not yet seen the worst the world had to offer yet, despite his earlier wariness. He was beautiful, though, and that Obi-Wan could accept without any doubt. No wonder the soldiers had made such fools of themselves in front of him.
"…I'm just a friend," Obi-Wan said at last. His voice came out rusted, held back with all the questions he wanted to ask, but this was not the time for him to unload them.
The young man stared at him, frowning, but Obi-Wan was not forthcoming with any more words. After a beat, he sighed and slumped his shoulders, deflating. "Well, thank you for your help. I didn't need it, mind you, but I'm grateful anyway."
"Of course," Obi-Wan said, nodding his head. "You seem like the strapping sort of man who could take them on, but why exert yourself on such a happy day?"
The man shook his head and snorted a laugh, breaking the dark cloud that seemed to hover over him. The change was almost magic in itself, the way his face lightened and gleamed with mirth. A ray of sunlight took the chance to shift over them, and it splayed over his face with almost perfect timing, haloing his curls with unearthly glow.
He had freckles on his cheeks.
"…You're beautiful," Obi-Wan found himself saying plainly, unable to help himself.
The young man blinked, startled, smile caught unaware, and his skin flushed in a breath's time. Obi-Wan wished he could turn back the last five seconds just so he could stop himself from saying anything at all.
"I—" The young man stammered. "I—I'm Anakin!"
Oh. His angel had a name. It felt strangely alien to Obi-Wan, who'd spent so many years of his life referring to him as just his angel, to know he had an actual name outside of just 'angel.' But, his name was Anakin.
"Anakin," Obi-Wan repeated. The man—Anakin nodded, cheeks still red. "Anakin, I—"
The temperature around them dropped, and Obi-Wan cut his words off, feeling the shiver in his spine with a touch of panic.
Not now, not when he'd finally found him! Anakin looked at him curiously, clearly noting the sudden strain in his demeanor. Obi-Wan spared him a glance, but the rest of his senses were stretched, looking for the shadows.
They were not yet there, but closing in. His brief lapse had given them the time they needed to catch up to him, and now Anakin would be also caught in the crossfire if Obi-Wan didn't get them out of there. He cursed under his breath and turned back to Anakin.
"Is something wrong?"
"Anakin, dear, please excuse me for this," Obi-Wan said hurriedly.
Anakin only had time to parrot back, "Excuse you for wha—aaagh!" before Obi-Wan scooped him up into his arms and leaped into the sky with the help of a gravity spell.
Time to go.