trans_9 | Mediation, Meditation, Inspiration for Itineration [Open]

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Mediation, Meditation, Inspiration for Itineration [Open]

Obi-Wan had done as he ought, he'd done what he could and then retired from the field. Too many hands for that pot, and not a one of them with as little sense. Still he was weary from his injury and his healing, and after a strange dream-addled sleep, what was needed most was perspective. The church was crowded, the city was an uncertain mess, and there was little enough peace to be had in the barracks— the Jedi had retired to the oft-praised sensoriums to look for a place of quiet. And he'd found in his choice of setting nothing less than what was unmistakably a Jedi Temple.

Oh, it wasn't the Temple, but the architectural style, the general layout were similar, all rounded, organics shapes an living stone. It resonated with him and so he found a cushion and a comfortable, bright lace where little but warm moist breezes and quiet birdsong reached him and began the quiet, measured breaths that were a prelude to the less combat-oriented meditation styles. Comforting quite, peacegiving pulse of the living Force in his very veins...if introspection were not so disquieting, they would have given greater balance. Obi-Wan sighed and began again. Anakin and Luke would know where to find him, when they were ready— and at least one of them deserved the lecture he'd be getting, and knew it.

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Arha hrmphed softly. The little angry Jed-Eye had done well in provoking. That was the obvious thing. She was not Bene Gesserit for nothing and she caught the way the issue swirled about him. The Force itself revealed the way it tugged at him so. She had see this in another face, in another dream.

This was not to be so and she did not approve. Her eyes flicked to Obi-Wan's and she cupped his cheeks gently, pinning him with a frank, searching look as her palms warmed. Perhaps she was too close, but it mattered not.

"I am not here to cause you turmoil," Arha whispered very softly, her voice pitched soothingly. The energy, that of the desert, warm like the sands brushed out, mixing with the calm of the Force. There was only the subtlest hints of the Voice, a quiet prodding, the suggestion of complete freedom. "Let it go. This will not do. Anakin with his anger, Luke with his pain, you with your own pain. You forget. It is not supposed to be pain. That is death and sorrow and darkness."

She blinked up at him, her touch light against his cheeks.

"One day, you will let what cannot be changed go."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to disagree, took the breath he'd need to speak, and instead exhaled, low and smooth. She was right. She was right, and Anakin was still so young. What was wrong with him, getting so hurt over something that could only cause such trouble? He'd never had any trouble keeping his silence on the subject before. A bubble of amusement at his own idiocy bloomed in Obi-Wan's heart.

"Next we shall have to present you to the council," Obi-Wan replied after a quite minute of thought, his tone lightly teasing, "As a replacement for Master Yoda. Thank you."

"Mmn," she murmured, her smile easy. "You do not have the little green, big eared man with you, the least I can do," Arha brushed his cheek with a thumb, her eyes crinkling at the corners with humor, "is see where reason lies when all his chaos. Those who are closest to us will often try our patience and bring our ire to boil."

Wryness pulled at her expression.

"The boy is young and filled with choices, some a rooted darkly. It is anger and fear he must master and it is those two, fear provoking the other, that leads him to where he is." Her fingertips slipped away from his face as she tilted her chin up to catch the light.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain," she murmured, then fell silent for a few beats.

"This you should all learn," she said. "This controls the fear that leads to anger that leads to confusion that leads to rage that leads to death."

"I am not Anakin's master any longer," Obi-Wan smiled ruefully at her. The touch of her hand on his face was intimate, but it seemed natural, and he did not object. Human touch was what he needed, to feel not so alone and isolate, so far from any solace. She was beautiful, but in the quiet of her lesson, Obi-Wan did not wonder at that, "Perhaps that is why the Force brought you to us; a step removed and all the wiser. If you can hammer any small part of that wisdom into his impetuous head, then I'll be more than grateful."

"He does not need me to hammer, Obi-Wan," she said, her voice lilting and sweet. "If force were the answer, he would not be where he is. Force is the problem, not the solution."

She studied him as if she were in his head, but she was not.

"You are always his Master, always the one who has taught him, always the one who sees the good in him. So, too, shall I see this." Her words were soft and she was still close. "Always," she said, "there is a moment, a cusp, in which a man is healed or broken. Fallen or restored. Find the moment."

Her fingers touched his chin. She dropped a chaste, gentle kiss on his lips.

"Save the man."

Edited 2009-09-13 06:59 (UTC)

"It's...just a turn...of phrase," Obi-Wan murmured, quite softly, not meaning his protest to interrupt her words at all. He knew he was staring, but her intense gaze held him like a magnet, and when she kissed him, Obi-Wan returned the gesture automatically. In the end, he was no better than Anakin, except in that his student had been brave and lucky enough to find someone who wanted him despite tradition and duty, and was willing to leave the Jedi way behind for her sake.

Obi-Wan inhaled sharply, and breathed, "Arha...what is it you want from me?"

"I want," she said very quietly, "you to see that this moment," her fingers brushed his hair gently, "...this one," her lips grazed his, "is a moment of possibility. The same possibility that lies in everyone. In my order, we are told not to love. In love, you make mistakes, in love plans do not come to fruition, plans set in motion long ago. So, too, is it with the Jed-Eye."

She murmured something soft, in Fremen.

"From all I have seen, I believe it is wrong," she said, her voice barely audible. "In order to survive all that will come, one needs to find the balance between loving wholly, completely, perfectly, and duty." She gently pulled her fingers through his hair, the motion soothing. "From you, for your former student, for your Order, I want you to find the balance, to see it as I see it now. So clear. All things will balance when they are put upon their true edge."

Arha arched her eyebrows.

"Fear, Obi-Wan Kenobi, breeds caution in the wise man, but too much caution and you are frozen in your life. It is time to move. It has been time to move from the moment you were still." The pad of her thumb skimmed over his temple. "Look and see this moment for its truth and see Anakin Skywalker's fear for what it really is. This is what I wish from you."

"Arha, you are making very difficult to think clearly," Obi-Wan pointed out, mildly, "And you are doing it on purpose."

And then, after a moment, "We're...not really talking about Anakin, any longer, are we? It isn't in my power to change the policies that have shaped our order for millennia. I am no Council Seat, no Grandmaster, just a Jedi Knight, and I must go where I am told. Whether or not you're right, we're at war."

"There is a point to everything I do," she murmured. "I am not random." For a moment a hint of annoyance flared, directed not at him, but elsewhere. "Should I ever find myself with the chance, I shall speak to your Council of Jedi. Without change all things die, the very policies that are in place shall be the downfall of your Order. Such was the fate of mine."

Her shoulders slumped as she half turned away, then shrugged.

"We are always talking about Anakin, about choices, about possibility," she said, rising to pace an arms length away. "War. We are at war in another galaxy, another Universe, another moment. Your council is not here, and the rules you carry around like armor..." Arha closed her eyes. "I feel your Force. Shall I too, live by those rules? Shall I, too, walk this path I see ending only in the death of a people whom I have come to respect and, perhaps, even hold dear? I am Bene Gesserit and not. Nor am I like you, Jed-Eye. I am new. So new."

Her smile was sad and twisted wryly as waves of weariness felt as if they had soaked their way into her bones. She did not wish many things and for once in her life, she wished she was not a Bene Gesserit trained to think in the way she thought. But there was no undoing life. One must ride the sandstorm until it was finished.

Arha shuddered, blinking for a moment.

"I will not see my home again," she said, the knowledge suddenly clear in her mind in a flash of rare prescience. "I will not see it."

Edited 2009-09-14 04:44 (UTC)

"Then perhaps that is the reason I have been brought here," Obi-Wan agreed, eyes soft and thoughtful, "And perhaps you are right. Come, sit beside me, don't think about death or lost homes. Just as we all leave our mothers, eventually we must all one day leave the place we were born. There is no shame in mourning it, but know that you aren't the only one."

"Perhaps," Arha said, pushing the weariness away to pad her way back to him. She sat and closed her eyes, taking the thoughts that bothered her and letting them go. They didn't need to taint her anymore and she didn't feel like chasing thoughts around in an endless loop. She had far more control than she had been exhibiting of late. Perhaps she was simply being lazy.

"I had not foreseen coming to this place," she murmured. "It is a difficult thing, but one I accept. It is time to put that place away. There is no point in dwelling on it, nor on the emotions that linger there. I must not fear." She drew a slow breath and cleared everything from her mind until she could see clearly again.

"Shall we meditate? Or shall we find something else to do?" she finally asked.

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering," Obi-Wan quoted softly, the lesson he'd heard more than once from his old Master, Yoda. So many lessons from one source, as if the wisdom of the entire order distilled in it's Grandmaster. He gave it a moment of thought, then replied, "Tell me what you felt, the other day?"

Of course, he was referring to the experience of his Healing, there was no need to call it by name, "I realize I have no knowledge of your Order, or your people, but I would like to learn what I can, if you don't mind. A fresh perspective on the experience couldn't hurt, after all."

"I have not the proper words to tell but I shall attempt to explain," Arha said slowly. "It...it was like the Spice Agony, in a way. But you do not know of that." She let out a huff of a sigh and ordered her thoughts. "We Bene Gesserit are trained over the course of many, many years--the most of us from infancy if it can be helped--in many ways from the arts, of which I enjoyed writing and dance the most, to military histories, mathematics, and the sciences. We are also considered the best warriors as we are trained in prana-bindu and, together with the introduction a rigorous psychological training,we know the Weirding Way. From an early age, we are trained thusly, our minds taught that our minds affect our reality. Space-time, cause and effect, all of these concepts are seen differently, malleable if you grasp them in the right way. We are trained in mind and in body. Some go so far as to call us witches."

She frowned.

"This training lasts for ten years, some longer," she murmured, closing her eyes. "Total control over one's physical and mental state is the goal. Master these and perhap a girl child is ready for the ultimate test. Failure is death. In the bid to awaken the genetic memory of our mothers, we take a poison called The Water of Life. It is a highly concentrated force of the spice melange and we are required to change the poison, to render it harmless. It awakens the Other Memory, the voices and lives our our female ancestry. The male line is lost. Thus it was when I found myself here, still suffering from the after effects of changing The Water of Life. I believe I barely survived it and I did it alone, in the wilds of the desert."

Arha was still and straight, her fingers linked as she spoke.

"What happened the other day, that was similar--an opening, a way, a newness--only it was not an Agony." Her eyes snapped open. "It was as if I had been blind, even as I sit before you, a Reverend Mother in her own right, and then suddenly I saw with eyes that had seen nothing but shadow before. I retain that memory clear."

She canted her head slightly.

"It is a thing I could share, should you wish it from my own perspective."

He considered it, he really did, but Obi-Wan Kenobi had not lived as long as he had by letting people he'd barely known for a week muck about in his head, no matter how well-meaning or interesting they seemed. He shook his head, a small gesture, a thoughtful rather than an abrupt one, and replied only, "Another time."

And yet, he had another question, as he turned her answer over behind his eyes as a river tumbles a round stone. "What has Master Luke told you, what do you know of the Force?"

"It is in all things," she replied quickly, accepting the another time with a soft twist of a smile. "In myself, in you, in this ship, in its people, no? In all living things and places. It moves to its own will and yet, as I have seen and experienced myself, it expresses that will to others. Its art is not of grand gesture, but set in the small of things as well as the large. It is also double edged, for I see two sides to it, even now." Arha's chin tilted. "But, all things have two sides. As to your histories, I know precious little, but always you Jed-Eye seem to be at war. At struggle."

Her smile was soft and eased the sharpness of her face.

"Such is the way of the Universe."

"Ah, that's not true," Obi-Wan protested, smiling, "But peace leaves very little for historians to record, and wars always seem longer than they really are, like all painful things."

Mirroring Arha, Obi-Wan set himself straight, as she head, almost teasingly, "The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. Fear, aggression and hatred, those negative, selfish emotions that bind us to ourselves, and blind us to others, those are the paths to the Dark Side. The Sith, who are in many ways of and like the Jedi, follow those paths and think only of themselves and their own goals to the point of obsession."

He paused, and let that sink in, then continued, "Although, we don't have the authority to train anyone from birth. Usually three would be the age anyone comes under our hand. If they aren't chosen as a Pawadan learner by fourteen, in all likelihood the chance to become a Jedi has passed that one by. Anakin was very unusual, he was about seven when he first began his training. The council was not best pleased when I took him on, but he kept up. The Force is strong with him."

"I know war," Arha said simply, lending weight to the word that told of battle and blood and death and, too, pain. She was silent for awhile, taking the information which he gave her in with a serious and intent expression as he spoke.

"It makes sense, then," she finally said. "The duality of light against the dark, conflict against peace. Balance against chaos." She flicked her fingers. "This Force is...a manifestation of the need for balance, perhaps? The living Universe's need for growth in two ways, your Light and Dark sides. No one side can exist without the other, ,as is the nature of all things with duality." She pursed her lips thoughtfully, her head bowed. "Those who are sensitive in your Force, if they are not found and trained, what do you do with them when they are discovered? No organization may be everywhere at once...not even mine, though we try. Among the Fremen, my people, there have always been Wild Reverend Mothers. They are called Sayyadina. They lack the precise training of our order, but they have Other Memory and a certain desert strength."

Her head came up a curious expression warming her face.

"Have you the habit of taking on the strange and unusual, Obi-Wan?"

"Honestly, it never comes up," Obi-Wan replied, slowly thinking. Shaky ground this, and although technically true, you did occasionally have someone half-trained and not a Jedi show up, like Ventress, "Medically, it's actually rather easy to test and see who'll have the potential. Most children are tested when they're very young, along with all the other standard screenings, and it's considered both and honor and convenience for a child to be accepted into the Temple for schooling. It's very rare for anyone to become proficient without someone to train them. Like any other skill, if it's not used it atrophies."

Her eyebrows arched a little.

"Interesting," she murmured, tucking her knees to her chest and setting her chin against them. "And what of me?" she asked in a small, careful voice. "What am I? What is to be done with me? There is no council, just you and Luke. What shall be done?"

"You?" A soft smile. Obi-Wan opened his mouth to say something dimissive and flippant, but closed it again. This wasn't a joke, her face said, and some tugging in the force brought his attention sharply around. If you're quiet, Qui-Gon had taught him, you could hear the singing of the midi-chlorians.

"You could be a Jedi, but it would be...very difficult. Already, you've had a lifetime of training and indoctrination...a philosophy that, while it has merits and truths, are not the truths the Jedi uphold," He replied, slowly, ever a man of caution, "I could teach you everything I know, and if you disagreed in the main, it would come to nothing. Of course, it all means nothing more than a very long lesson in philosophy, if you cannot truly wield the force."

"My life has been lived," she murmured, "by the trials of the desert winds where each day of survival is a triumph over death. I will persevere in all that is put before me, no matter what I will have to do or what may be asked of me." She said it with the utmost truth in her voice and there was no doubt on her face as she peered at him.

"I am here for a reason," Arha said. "Or else I would not have been placed in this position. I am sitting here in this spot with you on a moment of possibility. I shall not give you less than all of what I am and all that I shall become. If one is not committed upon a path, then they are lost. I will fight for this path that I have been placed upon, Obi-Wan Kenobi. This you already know."

Her voice warmed with humor.

"In any case, I have always been fond of philosophy."

"Well, that's a very good thing, because as anyone can tell you, I do love to talk," Obi-Wan laughed, "Very well, I had been meaning to take on another student. If nothing else, perhaps you'll be the best practice I've ever had."

"I noticed," Arha said deadpan, then allowed herself to laugh. "I shall endeavor to be as diligent a student as you may well ever have. You best enjoy answering all manner of questions, for I shall not show mercy on that front."

Her lips thinned slightly as she seized upon a notion.

"Shall we make this an even exchange?" she asked. "Will you wish to know prana-bindu and the Weirding Way? I offer such, or whatever you require. Ask, and should it be within my skill, you may have of it. "

"Even master Yoda has said that the teacher who stops learning has ceased to be a teacher," Obi-Wan agreed, "I would be delighted to learn from you."

"How is it that your people seal a bargain?" she asked solemnly. "For we have just made one. Were you Fremen, I would have given you the gift of my body's moisture. I understand spitting is considered an offense in some cultures and thus shall refrain. So, the method of binding is left to you."

Mediation, Meditation, Inspiration for Itineration [Open]

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