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WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: Obi-Wan Kenobi catch-all open post
WHEN: Backdated to cover the vaguely handwaved span of October/late september
WHERE: Kirkwall (Hightown), The Gallows courtyard, ect
NOTES:

I. Obi-Wan at the Hawke Estate

Obi-Wan Kenobi lived in a lovely house in Hightown. He was the only Rifter who lived there, indeed the only one on the entire street. This was, of course, because the house did not belong to him. It belonged to the Hawkes.

Specifically, most recently, to Bethany Hawke.

He valued his friendships for other reasons, but there were times when it was truly, geniunely good to have connections. Hemight work for the Inquisition, but living outside of the Gallows provided quiet, and privacy, and the luxury of at least pretending that they didn't all live in a prison built to house slaves and worse. Specificially it allowed him to putter aorund the kitchen and pretend that his arrival 'home' was no more remarkable than any other such arrival. That nothing was wrong. That he need not think of the future, or the past, or any moment beyond the present.

That he had returned as whole as he had left. Surely, there was that at least. There would be no miraculous bacta, or cloned flesh, or sybernetic replacement. This would be his life, from now on and he would just... have to cope. Alone.

There was no sense in worrying anyone, really.

II.Catching up with Cody

The first thing you'll see of them is a ball. It's small and rubber and it's brown in a way that suggests it used to be red, before time and dog had gotten their way. Mabari need a lot of exercise, and young mabari moreso than usual. So the first thing, is the ball, and shortly thereafter, bouncing at least as chaotically, is the dog. It's a sand-colored puppy, big-pawed and lanky in the way of growing dogs everywhere and running with a gait like an ambulatory pancake.

Floppa-floppa-floppa— pounce!

And thereabouts, just as the dog turns to return its prey to the hand that threw it, is when you might catch sight of Obi-Wan, walking at a much more sedate pace, and using the ball's added doubling back to make up for the lack.

III. Getting Back On The Horse, So To Speak

Obi-Wan no longer made his main residence in the Gallows, but it was still a useful place to visit. For one, most of the Rifters were still there, and for another, it was one of the few places in Kirkwall that a man could sit cross-legged with many small and often shiny pieces spread out in the sun and be reasonably sure that all of them would be where he left them a moment ago. Obi-Wan is, slowly, and with great care, taking something small and delicate off his lightsaber. It's not a terribly graceful process, for the most part, hampered as he is by the lack of a hand, but between that handicap and the use of the Force, it's a chore that requires a great deal of concentration. He's grateful for that, for the ability to simply forget about pretension, to make mistakes, even stupid ones and strive only for the hoped-for outcome.

Of course, the actual reassembly does not require the use of hands at all. But it's the time that counts, the ability to lose oneself in the work, in the meditation of it. And to forget, until someone else's shadow falls over him, that he's not entirely alone.

IV. Wildcard

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Obi-Wan answers the door without surprise. He lets her babble through the formalities, comforting nonsense-words that mean things like please, don't reject me and I'm lonely and frightened under the platitudes. Obi-Wan steps back to let her in and closes the door behind her.

"Of course you can stay as long as you like. I'm certain Bethany wouldn't object, even if she were here to do so. Come, sit," The house is full of the steeping smell of tea, Merrill's gift, and there's half a loaf of bread and pottage, not really too stale. They've both eaten much worse, and been grateful for it. Anyways, it's warm, "I can see we have some things to discuss."

You aren't fooling anyone, Rey. You get blotchy when you cry and it persists for hours, despite your dignity; it doesn't take a Jedi to see that you're upset.

The relief she feels when she steps over the threshold into the manor is almost palpable. She exhales, her shoulders relaxing, the tension she'd felt a moment ago slowly leaving her body, and only leaving behind the hollow empty feeling. Padawan is on her heels, though she does spare Obi-Wan a cursory sniff and tail wagging greeting. At Obi-Wan's observation Rey gives him a half smile, though it's fleeting.

"Ben and I got into a fight."

"I see," He says, which is his way of asking for more without pressing. He leads her through into the kitchen, and it's homey and warm, flat brown paving stones and the smell of good food. Cody lifts his tawny head from where he's lying beside the fire, wuffs once, then goes back to his nap.

And the table, yes, with the seat now meant for Rey.

"Conflict of some kind is inevitable in any relationship, however peaceful it might otherwise be," He says, though not without a certain trepidation. It's hard to imagine Kylo Ren or Ben Solo as a peaceful person, regardless of the relationship, "...It was an argument, not a..."

Not combat, he means. There's a difference between shouting and lightsabers, surely.

She settles in at the table without further comment, Padawan laying down at her feet, the kitten still asleep in her pack that she puts next to her chair. The kitchen being homey and warm just makes her wish she were sitting in her own kitchen with Ben.

Shaking her head she leans her arms on the table, suddenly feeling very heavy.

"No, we didn't come to blows. He just... did something I don't agree with. Which I know is a lot of what he's done in his past, but I thought he was leaving it behind him." Maybe that's what she's most upset about. That she'd been foolish enough to think that the light in Ben Solo's heart was stronger now in this place than it had been in their own galaxy. That he'd be able to push off the darkness when it came for him, even without her help.

Homey it may seem, but it's lonely too. Not that Obi-Wan is likely to complain— whether it's wise or not, he prefers to withdraw, most days. There's only so much reason, now, not to dwell upon the past. Not to meditate and let the days slip past him without much friction, when he can.

"I see," He says, quietly, and thinks about Ben's grandfather, disappearing into the black and returning much quieter than he had gone. He hadn't asked questions then, hadn't even considered asking; too aware of what the answer might be, and too unwilling to risk he inevitable consequences, "I should council you to go back to him immediately, to try and... guide him, somehow. That's what I would have said, before."

Before, in the lifetime when they had first met, and he had been a younger man.

"The truth is, sometimes, for there to be any good, there must first be some pain; you did the right thing, and I'm glad you had somewhere to run to, when you needed it. Anyways, I could use the help around the house, for a while; it's suddenly gotten a little... harder."

She feels cold creep over her skin as he tells her of what he should council her to do, because she feels guilty, suddenly. Had she run out on him too quickly? He had been so desperate for her to stay, that had been a large reason why she'd felt she needed to go. He had needed her to put distance between them, she'd felt. The cold subsides when Obi-Wan continues, and she musters a brief smile as he commends her, but the guilt remains.

"Harder? What do you mean?" Rey's eyes flick up to Obi-Wan's brow furrowed as she then looks around. She knew that the other occupants of the mansion were gone, but he'd been living like this for a few months, now. She couldn't imagine it changing, much. She's also tired and horribly distracted, so maybe not as observant as she usually is.

Obi-wan blinked at that. No, of course she couldn't know; and he'd done precious little to prepare her. But then, what could he possibly do? It wasn't the sort of news you threw a party for.

"I... took an injury, while I was away," He begins, sure only that to simply lay it out for her to see with her own eyes was... very much the wrong approach, "It's very likely to be permanent. So, this is going to be an adjustment, until I get used to it; I'm not sure how long that will be."

Time, like sand, there was so very much of it, until suddenly it was all slipped away through your fingers, and gone.

Her eyebrows crease slightly as he speaks, her lips pursing as her eyes scan his face and torso, everything she can see immediately looks fine. She doesn't recall him walking strangely when they'd come in, so surely the injury couldn't be something so serious? She reaches out with the Force, too, and she can still feel him there, strong and steady, so it isn't something to do with his abilities, either.

"Of course. It took Ben a while to adjust to the scar I gave him and he had the advantage of a bacta patch having been applied to it not long before he ended up here. You didn't have a healer with you who could help?" She'd found that the healers here often had better results than bacta. With bacta you were often left with a scar, but that didn't seem to be the case with magical healing.

"I—" Obi-Wan though about Anders, cursing him all the while, hands blue and bright around the stump of his hand. And the pain had been...

Unimportant. Obi-Wan reminds himself of that with a wrench, shaking himself away from the memory.

"Yes. Anders was there. Without his help, it might have been much worse," Obi-Wan heaved a deep, heavy sigh and turned more fully to face her, "It's a bit worse than a scar. I'll show you."

Obi-Wan put his arm up. He would have liked to wait, to breathe, but bullied his way through the impulse to delay: there was patience, and then there was cowardice. Obi-Wan slid back the sleeve. And there it was.

The scar was ugly, though not even half as ugly as it might have been. The cut had been crude, violent, tearing, but the healing had been immediate if not thorough. And now, for the forseeable future, his arm looked like this: abbreviated halfway between the elbow and a now-hypothetical wrist, the stump knotted with scar tissue, slightly reddened, the skin there still new. His hand was gone.

"I should have told you earlier. When I first arrived. But there's nothing to be done, and it seemed... unnecessary."

Rey's look of concentration turns to one of horror when she sees the stump where Obi-Wan's hand had once been. She can't school her reaction, even if she were trying, it's so much worse than she'd expected. No, no healer would have been able to repair his hand, as gifted as they were.

"Wh- Of course you should have told me! Here I am making a scene because Ben and I a fight, and you've lost a hand! I would have been here helping you if I'd known." She somehow is both mad at him for not telling her, and embarrassed that her problems had seemed anything but trivial in the face of his rather permanent one. The rift between her and Ben would be mended. This, unless magic was very advanced, was something he'd just have to live with.

Embarrassed— ashamed, rather, Obi-Wan pulled his maimed arm away with a grimace. It was easy to push the sleeve back over it, covering his offense, and that was a silly impulse; there was no taking it back, any of it.

"I'm sorry."

He isn't sorry that he didn't tell her, not really. All Obi-Wan had wanted to do was to pretend, however poorly, that nothing had to change. It had been a welcome respite, after a week of near-total chaos. But he was sorry that he had made her feel like a fool, or disregarded her feelings on the matter.

She pulls back from her anger quickly, letting out a breath and furrowing her eyebrows.

"It's all right. How- what happened? You're one of the best fighters I know, I wouldn't think anyone here would be able to get so close as to take off your sword hand." Unless there are weapons that can match a lightsaber here, which is a bit of a startling thought. She'd gotten used to assailants thinking that her saber was simply a trussed up spirit blade and being thoroughly surprised when they tried to meet her with steel and were left with a significantly shortened sword.

"The abbey we were invited to visit. There was a fight— it wasn't something we could win, not really. I would have preferred to wait, but then..." He made a gesture, somehow trying to convey, one-handed, that sense of helpless exasperation, and the uncertainty of a fight that seems winnable, until suddenly it very much isn't, "Well, Thranduil and Solas seemed to disagree with the sentiment of patience."

Story of his life, really.

"I had to make a choice, and to save their lives I overextended myself. It was a good trade, we should count ourselves lucky that only one Rifter died on that mission, but I won't pretend I don't wish it were necessary. We weren't adequately prepared for what happened."

Rey is a little surprised to hear that Thranduil wasn't on board with patience, she'd been on a mission with Solas and Thranduil once where the latter had argued for caution where Solas had wanted action. She hadn't spoken with Thranduil much since Obi-Wan returned, maybe something changed. That they didn't listen to Obi-Wan upsets her on some levels, because she's based so much of her life on wondering what he would do, how to approach things with her head instead of just her heart.

"I thought that was supposed to be a goodwill mission. It went so wrong that you lost your hand and someone lost their life?"

"The abbey had an artifact, something from a Rift. They were using it to work miracles, calling it the Maker's power. But it had a cost, and part of that cost created these ah... Wraiths, I heard them called. They were enormous, very fast, but they could be killed," He pauses a moment, thoughtfully. Truth be told, he hadn't witnessed anyone else trying it, "...With a Lightsaber, they could, at least."

He got it pretty bad, but at the end of the day, Obi-Wan still gave better than he got.

"I presume I could have asked them to bring back my hand. They gave a man back his lost eyes, while we were there. But at what cost? So many sickened and died as a result..." Obi-Wan trailed off a moment, lost in the supposition of it, the thought of being restored. But no. No, he'd seen the cost, and the fraying of the Veil. He hadn't asked for healing, "I am a Jedi. I can't sacrifice other's lives for the sake of my convenience. I made a choice to react as I did, and I must live with the consequences."

This is a lot of information and Rey's brows remain knitted together as she leans back in her chair, eyes focused on her teacup, before slowly rising to Obi-Wan.

"I suppose it was only a matter of time before something like that came through a Rift. Given how many different worlds are out there..." she shakes her head, still in the same position, her shoulderblades pressed against the back of the chair.

"Was the artifact destroyed?"

"No. It couldn't be," simple enough to say that they had tried, and not succeeded. And with a plasma-blade withing Obi-Wan's toolset, that was saying something, "It's in safe hands, now. Galadriel claims to be capable of keeping it contained and, as far as I've seen, that's true enough. For the time being, it's over; whether or not the Inquisition itself will agree is their argument to make."

"It couldn't be destroyed?" Rey breathes, knowing what that meant. Lightsabers were one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy, if they were unable to destroy something, chances were good it really couldn't be destroyed.

"Let's just hope the Inquisition doesn't decide a few wraiths are worth the possible gains of abusing such a thing," she says after a moment of silence, pressing her lips together in a thin line. She didn't think some of the Inquisition's leadership would risk it, but others...

"I didn't put the exact nature of the thing in my report. Enough to be truthful, from a certain perspective, but... Well. I respect the Inquisition's goals, and it's leaders are good people, they mean well. But we can't depend on their loyalty to Rifters, once this is over. And my own first loyalty is to you, and to Ben."

Obi-Wan had never said it so plainly before, an all but open declaration of treason against the Inquisition. He would not sabotage their efforts against corypheus, would indeed help their cause any way he could. But there would come a day after corypheus, after the last Rift was sealed, and the Inquisition would have to decide where it stood among the powers of Thedas. And when that time came, it would be a weak play to defend the rights of the strange, the weak, and the unloved.

The Rifters.

"You are... my family. The only one I am ever likely to have."

She's not surprised exactly to hear it, but for him to so plainly lay out his allegiances, and in such a way... It takes her aback. It also makes her heart leap, to hear him call her family. It was unsaid between them, of course, but aside from Ben, no one had called her family before. She'd spent much of her life waiting for her family to come back for her, but it seemed that she had needed to leave Jakku in order to find the family she wanted.

Pushing herself up from her chair she moves around the table and leans down to wrap her arms around Obi-Wan, hugging him firmly.

"You're my family, too. My loyalty will always be to you first." It's never been a question for her, really. If it meant she could never be a proper Jedi, she'd take it. But the world isn't worth fighting for, if you don't have someone to love in it.

Obi-Wan had no idea what to do. He hadn't been touched in... weeks, months. And before then, only rarely; the Jedi were not a tactile people, and Obi-Wan had been raised among them, in the broad walkways and the halls wide enough to drive a speeder through.

So he was stiff, and surprised, and the pain of her kindness went through him like a wound. He would have gasped, if he could have gotten his breath. Slowly, Obi-Wan's spine bent, and he sagged against her, head down against Rey's shoulder. It was good, in a way, and painful in another. He didn't understand, couldn't understand why he was reacting to it so strongly, only that he was.

"Thank you," He whispered, eventually, and held her in return, with his one good hand, inadequate as it was.

She'd only embraced Obi-Wan once before, when she'd been overcome with joy at his return to Thedas. Physical contact is something Rey is much more accustomed to, now, because she and Ben both had been so starved for it, in the early months of their relationship they had touched often. They still do, but it's no longer something surprising.

So his stiffness when she wraps her arms around him doesn't bother her, though as he relaxes and eventually hugs her back she feels the sting of tears across the bridge of her nose again, and she smiles, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"Thank you. All I ever wanted was a family, and you've given me that." Before even Ben had, Obi-Wan had become her family.

Obi-Wan wasn't exactly sure how long they stayed there like that. At first it seemed only too short, and if he'd been forced to put a name to the anxiety it would have been that she might pull away too soon. Before he was ready. But then, that was foolish; by her own admission, Rey was as desperate for the connection as he was, strange as the idea might be. Jedi aren't meant to be desperate for anything, it wasn't how they were raised, wasn't how they existed. It was wrong. But for now, just for a moment, it wasn't anything but human. Perhaps Master Yoda would have disagreed: there was no way to know.

"Yes. Well."

He recovered, and with that recovery, the return of dignity, and the much strived-for sense of balance Obi-Wan had always relied upon. Or something like balance, as close as he'd come in recent days. It made the whole thing just the faintest bit... awkward.

"...I should think anyone sensible would be proud. To have a daughter like you."

The tears in Rey's eyes now have nothing to do with her anger and heartbreak of earlier in the evening. Quite opposite, she's overwhelmed to hear Obi-Wan refer to her as a daughter. She lets out a shuddering breath, smiling despite the tears.

"My parents sold me to Unkar Plutt when I was a child. I-I was always waiting for them to come back, but they never did." She hadn't told him much about this, really only Ben knew the full scope of what she'd been through as a child. "I'm glad they didn't, now. If they had come back, you saying that might mean less. I'd be honored to have a father like you."

What had seemed a little awkward has bloomed into fully-realized embarrassment. Obi-Wan isn't used to this much...emotionalism. Or, at least, not this much expression of it. He pats her back, carefully, as well as he can.

"Has that been worrying you?" He thinks a moment, then draws back, away from the hug, "Is it because of Ben's... Ben."

The Skywalker bloodline, he means. The very thought is vaguely laughable.

"Most Jedi come from nothing. Nearly all of us. Everyone I've ever trained with, at least. Myself included. What's important is never where you're from, it's where you're going."

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