Open

[hello_there]

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."

Comments

[letoldthingsdie]

"She left." He repeats the words as if trying to fit them in his mouth. He'd never thought of someone voluntarily leaving the Jedi. He had only ever experienced being cast out. Even if he had been the one to burn the temple down and kill several of his peers, he had still been cast out by his uncle.

"Strange how that keeps happening to the Jedi - their own people leaving." He hadn't meant for the barb, but he can't deny that it was satisfying to him to know that the Jedi then and now clearly hadn't changed. He notes that Obi-wan had sheathed his blade. He wouldn't have minded training with him but that moment had passed for now.

[hello_there]

"I forget how little you know," He replies, with what Obi-Wan feels is a justified affront, "We began training at a very young age with the understanding that many of those children would grow up and prove unsuitable for the life of a Jedi. People left the Order when they felt the need; I left the Order, even. Briefly."

The wave of a hand as if to say and there you are, brat.

"We were many things, but being a Jedi wasn't a prison sentence. Far from it."

[letoldthingsdie]

"No, you just betray your own students time and again." And there's that stone wall of hatred again. He stands, defiant as ever, with his arms crossed and his jaw set. Somehow he's sure that must be what happened. He doesn't know who this girl is that was his grandfather's student, but surely that can't have been his fault that she left. He left too, in the end. He saw the Jedi for what they were.

"The Jedi may not be a prison sentence but leaving - or being cast out - becomes like the ultimate betrayal, does it not?" On both sides, really. While he'd been trying to be understanding and wanted Rey to learn from Obi-Wan he still felt stubbornly against it - stuck - when it came to himself. The Jedi had only ever been errant knights of a dead and failed history.

[hello_there]

"Hardly."

He says it almost like a scoff, folding his arms into his sleeves. When Obi-Wan turns, it's to regard Ben with that same speculative look he'd been giving the training dummies.

"Children grow up. People change. Ashoka chose to leave, and we accepted her choice. It's not a betrayal to want something else from life," Which is true enough. The betrayal had never been in the wanting, nor even in the choice. It was about blood, and death, and the lie of it all. But of course, the weren't talking about Ashoka any longer, "You're very determined to paint the Jedi as evil, aren't you? Are you afraid we might not be?"

[letoldthingsdie]

"You are evil." He grits his teeth, his hands dropping to his sides again to clench into fists. "The Jedi Order is evil and full of weak men - too weak to ever change what's exactly wrong with the Order in the first place."

His face becomes twisted with anger and he very nearly reaches for Obi-Wan to grab him by the front of his shirt. He was angry, but beneath it were flashes of fear that Obi-Wan was right. The Jedi weren't the evil once but he had always been, just as his parents and Luke had seen. Instead of reaching for Obi-Wan, his hand drops to his lightsaber though he doesn't remove it from his belt just yet.

[hello_there]

"No, you want us to be evil. Because it's not enough for one man to have been wrong, you have to be right in order to have left the Jedi. Completely right, morally right. Or else you might have to admit you've done something wrong."

And he had, hadn't he? He'd killed for it, likely many people. Likely as not, people who'd done nothing to deserve it, who would otherwise have welcomed him as a friend, if he'd chosen differently. As a protector, a savior, a... a Jedi.

"This isn't about the Jedi Order, and this isn't about me. This is about you."

[letoldthingsdie]

He opens his mouth to speak only to close it again, lips pressed tightly together. He stared at the space between them, the dirt feeling farther and farther away. His throat felt tight and his jaw tense.

"No. It isn't. This is about the Jedi twisting everything into their neat little existence - anything that deviates from it is cast out." He was cast out. He's so sure that was the case for his grandfather too - perhaps his student as well. Even so, it pains him to hear Obi-wan's words because he knows they're true. It all boiled down to the hurt he felt, the betrayal of his uncle and his parents. The family he had been taught to rely on had let him down so greatly that he'd done whatever he had to do to survive.

"I did what I had to do to do - regardless of right or wrong. I would have been dead otherwise." He raises his chin in defiance, despite his eyes burning with tears and his face slack with sorrow. Why had no one wanted to save him before? Perhaps that isn't accurate: his father had tried, but it had been too late. Snoke's claws had sunk themselves so deep that there hadn't been a way to shake them loose.

"The Jedi legacy is failure." His hand flexes over his lightsaber, wanting so badly to draw it, to show Obi-Wan how wrong he is. This isn't his fault. It's their fault.

[hello_there]

"Ah yes. A thousand generations of civilization, a stable, democratic government and relative peace that lasted more than four millennia, and the only legacy left behind is... you?" The scowl in Obi-Wan's voice is as cutting as his expression is mild. Tightly controlled. He can sense the emotion riding in Kylo, and the accompanying danger. But he won't be the first to react, never the first to strike, but always the last to give in; that was the Jedi way, "For someone who's so adamant that it's only other people who reject the diversity of perspective, you're very quick to do the same to others. Of course, you are the center of the universe, are you not? The only one with an opinion that matters, and at all of... what, twenty years of life? It can't be more than forty years that stand between my life and yours."

He's silent for a moment, looking at Ben, at his open, unhappy sorrow. He looked as if he were going to cry.

"Rey is the strongest single point of light, in that legacy, but she's not the only one. You can still join her, if you're finished slinging petty, poorly-informed insults. But it's time to grow up, Ben," He couldn't decide, couldn't remember, if he'd ever called the boy by that name, before, "You've managed to reject, escape, or kill every other obstacle, until now, but you cannot escape yourself. Search your feelings. You know what I'm saying, is the truth."

[letoldthingsdie]

He takes a steadying breath, actively trying not to give in to his anger. It was a a first for him. Not long ago, his first impulse would have been to cut this man in half before ever having an in depth conversation about his faults.

"If that makes me selfish, to place the blame where it belongs, then so be it. The Jedi created Darth Sidious, created Darth Vader, and they created me. At the height of the Jedi's power, you were eradicated like insects and you stood vigil for twenty years while your former student laid waste to the galaxy. If anything, you're the most failed of them all. You'll fail her too, in the end."

He was making barbed remarks at this point, trying to hurt Obi-wan as much as he felt hurt himself. He rocks on his heels a bit, taking another steadying breath. His ears ringing and his hands shaking, he pushes back the hurt and channels it into fierce anger. At the sound of his birth name, his head jerks up.

"You don't get to call me that." He still struggled with Rey publicly calling him by his birth name, but hearing Obi-Wan call him that while telling him to search his feelings was too much. It reminded him of his mother, of how she'd named him after this very man whom she'd put her hopes into during the height of the war with the Empire. Her own hopes for her son had been dashed, of course. He was nothing but a monster who clung hopelessly to a girl like some sentimental fool.

[hello_there]

Obi-Wan stood there in silence, simply breathing. He had grown up in a temple, trained to mindfulness from the impetuous annals of youth, through the hormones and rage and grief, over and over and over again. And he had learned well, that you could lose everything, and not break. That it could happen again. That you could love and struggle, and lose that love, and heal. But how long, before the scars overgrew him, like growth blocking a path?

He opened his mouth, to speak. And then closed it again, jaw working. Because it wasn't Kylo at whom he laid the blame for any of it, nor was it Rey, or Anakin, or Master Yoda, Darth Sidious, or even Vader. Everything he'd said to the boy had been true for him as well: You cannot escape yourself.

So he inhaled sharply, through his nose, and said only simply: "You are absolutely right."

Then he turned on his heel, and walked away into the comparative darkness of the Gallows. And he didn't look back. What he needed, just now, was a strong drink, and a quiet, lonely place to have it in.