faderift | Open

Entry tags:

Open

WHO: Obi Kenobi and anyone who wants to hang out with him
WHAT: Obi-Wan Catch-all
WHEN: Mid-Justinian onwards (before the rifter discussions)
WHERE: Kirkwall, ect
NOTES: n/a

i. The Road Ahead
There was a puppy in Obi-Wan's travel-bag. It was actually fairly impressive, given the size and ambition of the mabari and the relative meagerness of the bag itself. It was more of a pack, really, the kind of thing meant to hold trail-food and the necessities to keep a body alive over the course of a few day's travel. Obi-Wan was not a man given to material wealth, otherwise expensive war-hounds aside.

"Cody," He warned, and glanced again towards the door— hanging ajar, open to the hall, now. Ah, that explained how he'd gotten in, again, "Now, we've spoken about this. You can't go in the pack."

The dog only whined and tilted its head, as if confused. Forty pounds and as spindly as a colt, there was no reasonable explanation of physics that could have united both dog and bag in the asked-for manner. But Cody persevered. Obi-Wan sighed to express his disapproval.

"Out."

Obi-Wan Kenobi, was having some difficulty.

ii: The "Ancient" Texts
Today was sunny in a way that, in Kirkwall, always seemed to be somehow qualified. Today, it could have been anything; perhaps it was only begrudgingly sunny in the bare hour before the afternoon rains, or too humid to be pleasant, or the smell of Darktown that's risen up through the streets in a cloud of foul-tasting steam. But, sitting in the Gallows courtyard, Obi-Wan couldn't smell Darktown, and didn't much care about humidity either way; he was writing. In his hands was a little book, and beside him another, both bound in plain, unremarkable leather. Both were handwritten, the one in his hands somewhat less so, and he seemed, despite his preoccupation, to be waiting for someone.

Or maybe he's just giving the sand-colored mabari puppy room to run; it's certainly doing its bouncing, cheerful best to encounter every single person with business in the Gallows to-day.

iii. Old Habits
Step, turn back, begin again. Second form, faster now; breathe, inhale, and lift—

Comforting basics, he'd run this form a thousand times and more. He'd mastered it. There were no fancy moves, nor clever flourishes in this calm ballet. The Lightsaber hilt was warm and comforting in his hand; familiar design, familiar grip, the hum a constant stream of nostalgia near his ear as Obi-Wan whirled it again into the third stance, then the fourth. It was never about hurting people, this way; they'd trained in a time of peace, with the hope of that peace in their ears. There were no targets, only patterns, circles in circles. Yes, a lightsaber was a deadly weapon, but it didn't have to be.

It didn't have to be— like this. None of this had to be like this.

Obi-Wan finds, abruptly, he's shifted off pattern. He stops, pushes the sweat back into his hair, and grumbles a sigh. Focus, Kenobi. How many times are you going to fail? Are you really this out of practice? Time for a break.

"I used to be able to get through this in one try, believe it or not," He says, by way of greeting, "Good evening."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Ah, Rey. It's good you're here."

Obi-Wan smiles to see her, and nods his greeting. Then he promptly shuts the little notebook and tucks it away, with care for its security. He offers her the other, the one sitting aside, and finished, a dense little volume, bound in nondescript leather of poor quality, but sturdily made.

"See for yourself," He says, with an encouraging little flourish, and sits back to give her the time to do just that, "I think you might find some of it useful."

It's not quite a training holocron. But it's something; rough sketches of forms and intermediary movements, names and histories and great deeds, the Jedi Code, and all he can remember of their teachings. Including the ones that were lies, helpfully labeled as such. Some of them even come with explanations as to why they were to be lied about-- there was some educational value, to deception.

"When I vanished, you and Padawan were left... alone. I can't guarantee I'll always be here for you, any more than you can the reverse. But, that doesn't mean...Well. You can see."

Eyebrows creased in focus Rey accepts the book offered to her, flipping through the pages. Her brow relaxes as she realizes what it is, eyebrows arching in wonder instead. She looks up at him with a small smile on her face, nodding her head.

"This is wonderful. I-I tried to do what I could with what you've taught me, but..." It had been difficult. She hadn't known what to do, and there's still so much she doesn't know about the Jedi and her own power. Even with her connection to Ben making learning a lot of it easier, she's no closer to being a Jedi than she was two years ago.

For a moment, he just smiles as well as he can, puts a hand on her shoulder and struggles for breath, for control. When Obi-Wan has mastered himself, he takes a deep, steadying breath, and speaks.

"The old Order, my Jedi Order, is gone. What a Jedi is, what we are going to be... it can never be was it was. What I've written down for you here is, it's just a starting direction. A light in the dark, for when you're uncertain where to go, and need to know where we've been," His smile ticks down a little, remembered sadness, lost joy, "My master, Qui-Gon Jinn, was a Grey Jedi, like you. And, like you, most of these rules never seemed to apply to him. I wish I could have been a better teacher for you, but never doubt that you are becoming a very fine young Jedi."

Her smile fades as she watches him and listens to him speak, her brows knitting together again, not in focus but concern. He may be her teacher, but he's also someone she cares for a great deal, and it's never easy to see someone you care for remembering things they'd rather not. She reaches up silently to press her hand over his on her shoulder, squeezing lightly.

Him saying that she's becoming a fine young Jedi means more to her than she can possibly say, and she smiles despite the crease in her brow, before her expression grows serious again.

"What's a Grey Jedi? I didn't realize there was more than one type of Jedi. It always seemed like... there were rules that are to be followed if you want to be a Jedi. Rules I've... definitely broken."

"Well, sit down, this might take some explaining," Pull up some floor, Rey, there's plenty of courtyard to go around, "You already know, loosely speaking, that the Force has two sides. The Light and the Dark."

He holds a hand to indicate the two sides, swaying first one way, towards the sunlit inner courtyard, and then back again, into the shadows under the side-passages, where the roofs closed in to guard the dormitory entryways from the sun.

"Most people, most Jedi fall into mainly either one camp or another. The Light representing stability, serenity, new life, and the Dark... chaos, imbalance, passion. Neither is more or less of the Force, but always the Jedi have always strived to bring our students into the Light: three Sith is enough to destabilize the Galaxy, and bring about terrible suffering. The Light is... better, for everyone."

He drops his hand, then, as if to refute the point, or declare it all moot. Obi-Wan's glance is significant.

"But— not for every individual. There have always been Jedi, very rare, who ignore the council, and who walk the line between Light and Dark. They're guided not by what is most balanced, or what is best for the world overall, or even what they've been asked to do; it's about what's right for the situation. They can't be called Sith, because they don't fall to the temptations of the Dark Side, but neither do they adhere only to the Light. To be Grey is... the middle road, the path less traveled."

Rey listens to Obi-Wan speak, a look of dawning slowly crossing her features as he does. She thinks of the temple on Ahch-To, how that place had been so full of light, but there had also been the darkness there. Luke had explained that as where there was powerful light, there was also powerful dark to balance it. She had seen the mosaic of the First Jedi, though. It had been light and dark, a single person, balanced.

She exhales slowly, hearing not only herself described in what he explains, but so much else seems clear to her. She could be a Jedi. She smiles, slow at first, before letting out a laugh and smiling more, her eyes stinging a little at the tears welling there, expressing the depth of the emotion she's feeling.

"The First Jedi was a Grey Jedi. In the temple on Ahch-To, there's a mosaic of a single person, and it's done half in dark stones, half in light. But it isn't all uniform, one side dark, one side light. It's mixed. Here I- I drew it, I wanted to show Ben, I thought it might help him--" she leans over, rifling around in her pack before pulling out her own leather journal, flipping through several pages of sketches before coming to where she'd drawn out the mosaic.

"I haven't had a chance to show it to him, yet."

At first, Obi-Wan simply smiles, delighted right along with her to have found a way forward, and to have pleased her. It's all he's wanted, after all, for her sake: to know the Force, and to share in that ultimate joy.

But she, as always, surprises him. She goes farther, and when he's still blinking over the idea of anyone knowing concrete details about the first Jedi, she's showing him her rendition of the mosaic and...

The smile fades as realization rises in him. A Jedi will come, to end the Sith, and bring balance to the Force.

To bring balance.

Obi-Wan feels very suddenly, like a man who's been walking a narrow path above an incredible drop, and had never realized it. his hands tremble as he takes the sketch from her, to examine her work more closely. But really, he barely sees it. He's thinking about Kylo, and the derision in his voice when he'd spoken about the Sith.

"...I... Think he'll find it very enlightening."

The prophecy had never been about Anakin.

Rey notices the shift in Obi-Wan's demeanor, his trembling hands. The excitement of a moment before is extinguished like a flame and she's worried again, as conversation had turned to Ben. She's worried Obi-Wan has realized something about him that she hasn't, and this revelation of the first Jedi was what helped him realize it.

"I just have to think of a good time to bring it up. We've been avoiding the subject of... Kylo," she hesitates, before adding. "Are you alright? You look shaken, suddenly."

"I'm fine," He tells her, and then, just for a moment, wonders at the automatic surety of the lie. Shouldn't he tell her, what he suspects?

But then he remembers the sulfur smoke of mustafar, and a voice he could even then only barely recognize as his own. You were the chosen one! Being Chosen had been a terrible burden to Anakin. And in the end... No. Not to Rey. Let him at least say he learned something, from all this.

Obi-Wan took a breath, and let his distress show, giving over to the truth in a way that would support the falsehood, rather than weigh it down.

"Old memories. They always seem to catch me out, at the oddest times," Which was, after all, nothing less than the truth. Obi-Wan shook his head and gave her something true: a smile he felt, rather than simply put on, "Don't worry about me, I'll be alright. You were saying something about Kylo?"

She knows he's lying when he automatically tells her he's fine, but when he amends it, mentions his memories, she understands. She has her own memories that she struggles with, and hers weren't so bad as his. She's just trying to turn a lost soul back to the light, rather than he, who witnessed the most feared man in history's descent.

Smiling a little sheepishly as he brings them back to the subject she'd brought up only a moment before, she absently pushes her hair behind her ears.

"We don't talk about it much. We did when he first arrived, arguing about the light inside him, but it's just gotten easier to talk about everything else. He's turning, I can feel it, and I know he can too. But we've avoided the conversation."

"You're doing better than I ever have," Obi-Wan admits quietly, and with only a little of the bitterness he feels— it's a good thing, surely, for Rey to find some success, "I hope you do realize, there will come a time when there'll be no avoiding it. Perhaps it would be wiser..."

He stops, caught up in the suddenness of the idea. The way the two of them had grown into their power was strange and new, truly. Both had learned young, as was proper, but to Obi-Wan's way of thought, nearly backwards to the Jedi pattern.

And yet, maybe some old traditions still had a use.

"Have I ever told you about the Trials?"

Rey knows that eventually she and Ben will need to talk. But before she can admit as much Obi-Wan is on to a new topic and she blinks, her forehead wrinkling in thought for a moment before she tilts her chin in that way that means she's interested.

"I've heard of them, I don't think from you. Some pieces of the Jedi legend survived even after the fall of the Old Republic. Those are tests a padawan must undergo in order to become a Jedi, aren't they?"

"Yes," He replies, turning a little away from her in that contemplative way of his, arms folded inside his sleeves, "There was a... a trial of skills, and knowledge, but that was all just competency. The kind of thing a Jedi needed to know to do the work, not to be a Jedi. There was always a final Trial, the most difficult one, and if you passed it, you would be confirmed as a Jedi Knight."

He thought back, to his own trial. The ferocity of it. The terrible anger, the rage, the horror. Pale blue eyes gone dull and empty, not shocked, but surprised in a strangely mild way. As if losing his life had come as no more an inconvenience than Obi-Wan's latest foolish question. The way the desire to kill had risen up in him like a black tide and shown him what he was capable of, if he really lost his temper, if he let that darkness rule his choices.

"The candidate must face their own darkness, and either be consumed by it, or defeat it on its own ground. The older versions involve being sealed in a cave, to meditate, but it can take many forms."

Rey feels as though she's been submerged in cold water as Obi-Wan speaks of the Trial, and it sounds eerily familiar. It's almost like it was yesterday, that night on the island, after screaming at Kylo--Ben about his family, deciding to go and get the truth of her own.

Her greatest fear.

"There was a cave... on the island. It was a place of Darkness, Luke told me to resist it but I knew... I knew I needed to go there. That there was something there that I needed to see." She presses her lips together, feeling the cold of the cave in her bones, like it had never left.

"But there was nothing. It showed me that I'm... no one. That my place in this story that's spanned generations is just... coincidental." She shakes her head, trying to push it away, again. She'd mostly come to terms with that, the loneliness. Ben had helped with so much of that, and others had, too. She knows she's important, even if she doesn't come from greatness.

It's still hard, when you know where everyone else came from.

Obi-Wan doesn't reach out, doesn't touch her. But he watches, sidelong but intent. He lets her speak, lets the sorrow and remembered fear touch her voice.

"Does it matter? I come from a... farming family, on Stewjon. Most Jedi don't know even that much about their parentage. Anakin was a slave, when I met him on Tatooine," He says this last casually, without care. For once in this life, it's not about Anakin kriffing Skywalker, it's about Rey, "The Force itself arises from the interactions of even the humblest life-forms. Greatness can arise from anywhere. And you..."

He tries to put words to it, to the feeling in him now, of so much more than pride. Obi-Wan doesn't really know that he has the right to any pride on her behalf; what Rey is, she has built herself, and his help has only ever been incidental. It consisted mainly of knowing when and how to step aside, and to urge her onwards, to step up and into her own.

But Obi-Wan can't quite force the word past his teeth, the one he means but can barely admit: daughter.

"There is no such thing as coincidence. Everything that has happened to you, has been for a reason. Something you needed, to grow, and to learn, to become the person you would need to be, in order to do what only you can do. Trust in the Force; it will guide you."

She looks up at Obi-Wan when he mentions that Anakin was a slave, surprise evident on her features. The Skywalkers were fabled, stories told of Luke's victory against Vader, she was sure that it was a long line of ancient warriors spanning back to the first Jedi. Perhaps that they were even related to the first Jedi themselves. That possibility humbled her sometimes, had made her revere Luke when in reality he'd just been a broken old man.

That was the problem, wasn't it.

She lets out a small breath, giving Obi-Wan a muted smile as the new information sinks in, mixing with things she already knows, but it's nice to hear him say them.

"I've been learning that. But at the time... I just wanted to belong somewhere. To know exactly why I fit into all of this. Even my connection with Ben-- Snoke claimed credit for that, but I don't know that I believe him."

"What matters more is what you choose to become, not where it started," Obi-Wan told her, and only then, reached out a hand, tentative, uncertain of his use, and placed it on her shoulder, bracingly.

"Rey. My point is this; you've felt the weight of that trial, and you know what it is, what it means. Ben will one day soon need to look into the mirror and accept what looks back at him."

She knows what he's saying. She'd sensed it, after they'd fought for the lightsaber on the Supremacy. It's something she has no control over, she can only help him in helping himself.

"When we touched through the Force I saw a vision. I know... I know the visions aren't always set in stone futures, but I believe in him. I believe he'll recognize that there's still good in him." She'd done what she had promised him she'd do, back then. She's helped him find the light in him, she just needs him to recognize it.

"I used to have a great deal of faith, in prophecies, and visions," Obi-Wan says, quietly, looking at the book in her hands as he does so, "But maybe..."

No. No, the consequences were too dire, to trust one's footing to those shifting sands. Not so soon.

"...We can always hope. But hope alone won't see it done. Is there any way I can help you, Rey?"

Edited 2018-07-19 17:13 (UTC)

She's learning to trust the Force, but it's a process. It's learning to trust in something that while part of her always believed, she's still not entirely sure how to know what it wants from her. Why her. It's something that came up more than once.

"Don't give up on Ben," Rey says after a moment, exhaling as she presses her hand over her heart, feeling the crystal pendant she now wears everywhere under her shirt. "I know he's... not easy to deal with, but you're a better teacher than Luke was. He might not know it, but he needs more than just me believing in him."

"I'll do my best," the promise came easy, though it was all he could give. Obi-Wan lied quite often, but he broke precious few promises, once made, "Although I'm not sure what kind of compliment that is. I'm beginning to think Luke was never meant to be a teacher at all."

Aside from, of course, that there was no one else to do it, and precious else for a lone Jedi to busy himself with. Celebrity would erode at the patience of a light-side Jedi... but then, perhaps it would erode at other things too. Something to meditate on, for later.

"But what about you?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Open

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject