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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"Don't be too hard on yourself. You can't be too badly off, if I trained you," Obi-Wan teased gently, patting Luke's shoulder, "As for Anakin, he's had his bumps along the way, but really, he's a good Jedi, at heart. The Chosen One, my master, Qui-Gon called him."

"His thoughts are so dark," Luke said. "I feel that his recent mood is my fault. I should have told him outright when he arrived." It might not have been easy, but it would have been right."

Obi-Wan watched Luke's expression thoughtfully, and had to shake his head and sigh.

"Listen to me," He said, turning more fully, to face Luke in earnest, "My Master, Qui-Gon Jin, always taught me that to worry overmuch about the past is folly. It's done and gone, what can you do about it, now? Focus on today, and be mindful of the future, but do not let it rule you."

He thought about that a moment, turning it over in his mind as he'd seen his own students do with their lessons. Perhaps he'd been doing too much of that lately--with Anakin and Obi-Wan here, Luke had been thinking often on the past, on those first few days when he'd realized his birthright was to be a Jedi without actually knowing what it was he'd be committing himself to. So, too, had he been thinking of Mara often. Perhaps all this reminiscing was why things were so awkward between himself and his father, and himself and Arha.

"You're right," Luke said softly, a little smile taking over for the contemplative expression. "I may honor the past but I cannot be hidebound or mourn too long for those who have become one with the Force. That way leads to stagnation, which doesn't help anybody."

"Just so," Obi-Wan smiled, and if it had been a particularly clever martial-arts maneuver Luke had mastered he might have said 'good work, Luke,' before remembering that the other Jedi was as much a master as he was. Still the sentiment was in his eyes and expression as he nodded, "I've seen more Jedi fall into despair over worrying about the past or the future than anything else. Just do the best you can each day, one at a time."

"I will, Master--Ben," Luke corrected himself, a sheepish grin on his face. It still felt a little funny to not show this man what he felt to be the proper level of respect. "It's easier said than done, though. Sometimes events happen that cause you to worry about the future just as much as the present."

Thoughts of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion crossed Luke's mind, and all the joys and sorrows of that long and bloody war. Then, he'd been worried that the Jedi might not survive the war at all, and the Order he'd worked so hard to rebuild would once more fall under the might of an oppressor. But even then, he and the rest of the Jedi had taken things one battle at a time, one mission at a time, one day at a time. They had been a pivot upon which the war had turned.

"More out of a desire to preserve the good and justice in the world than anything else," he clarified.

"Just...don't let it crush you," the smile faltered and faded. Of course, Obi-Wan's thoughts turned back to his most recent padawan. He sat quietly in thought, and when he spoke again it was on a slightly different topic "I can't bring him out of it, you know. He has to climb that mountain alone. All the words I could give would only make a landslide to impede him. It's Anakin who must be strong enough to overcome this. We all struggle with the Dark Side, Luke. It's never easy, is it?"

He thought of the many times his own path had been shrouded in darkness, from the months spent serving a clone of the Emperor to when he had flown recklessly after Lumiya, slaughtering her with vengeance in his heart, and putting himself at the juncture that could have led him to seat himself on Caedus' throne as a Dark Lord of the Sith.

"It never is," he said softly. "And Father must find his own way out of his darkness. Of course, when we tell him this he tells us we're not helping any." He touched the petals of a flower he'd been looking at for a long time, then let his hand fall. "The choice is his alone. It's not one we can make for him."

"For some the temptation is deep, and for others it seems relatively light," Obi-Wan mused. The Skywalker line seemed fraught with troubles, but they survived them all, so far. Perhaps he should take his own advice and worry less about the outcomes of things.

"I never told anyone this before, but if it helps..." Obi-Wan hasitated, then shook his head. No. Tonight was a night for telling truths and revealing secrets, "I was once quite close to turning to the Dark Side, myself."

Luke looked round in surprise. Obi-Wan, having a brush with the Dark Side? It didn't seem possible to him; the man had always exemplified the Jedi to him, even if he'd taken liberties with the truth of Luke's father. Blue eyes widening a little, it took a moment before Luke could really answer.

"Why?" he asked, then immediately felt flustered. "I mean, what brought you to that point? I never thought..."

Obi-Wan nearly laughed, Luke's head had spun so quickly. Was it really that surprising? The smile faded to something a little less pleased after a moment, now more nostalgic than anything else.

"It started when I was still just a padawan," Obi-Wan recounted, as if to himself, "There was the most beautiful woman training alongside me, for my Master and hers were both assigned to the same mission, so we all worked together. I'd known her since the temple and I was— I was very young. Not surprisingly...we fell in love."

That was a bitter-sweet taste in his mouth, the memory of that realization, and that nothing could ever come of it. They were both too promising, too dedicated...to leave the order, permanently? Never. It was lonely, after that. Obi-Wan shook himself, "We agreed that our duties were more important than our personal feelings, and so when the time came for us to take up posts on what seemed like opposite ends of the Galaxy, we went without complaint."

He blinked at the regret in his voice and sighed, turning to gauge Luke's reaction to all this. It wasn't easy to find out that your master had been young once, and foolish, no doubt.

Edited 2009-09-18 04:37 (UTC)

Somehow it still surprised him, the idea of Obi-Wan being attached to anyone in such a manner. Perhaps it was the master and student relationship they'd had, and the way he'd always thought of Obi-Wan as an eccentric hermit who was old before time began when he was growing up, but Luke almost couldn't wrap his mind around it.

There wasn't any lie or subterfuge in the way Obi-Wan spoke, though. He'd been genuinely fond of this woman, and the pain that radiated out from him brought a pang to Luke's heart. "What was her name?" he asked, tilting his head.

"She was Siri," Obi-Wan's voice was soft, and oh that hurt, the way his heart constricted. He didn't like to talk about this, but he pushed through. It was too late to back out, and so he continued, "Siri Tachi. Some years later, our paths happened to cross again. Anakin was properly my Padawan, by then, and it was...not our best mission."

He had to stop, then and take a breath. It shuddered in his throat, so he took another, and that one came clean. The story wasn't finished, but he couldn't manage that detached tone quite so well anymore, "We were careless, and she died in my arms. In that moment I could have killed everyone there, for how black I felt. I nearly did. That bounty hunter will probably have a burn-scar on his throat for the rest of his life for how close I came. If I hadn't— If I had done what I nearly did, I most certainly would not be a Jedi right now, even if I lived through the experience. Even so, I will never stop missing her."

Luke swallowed; the grief of a Jedi Master was a powerful thing, as he knew, and Obi-Wan's washed over him in slow, thick waves, choking him too with its depth. Thoughts of feeling Mara die--the severance of their bond, the anger he'd felt and the dark satisfaction as his lightsaber's blade sunk into Lumiya's cyborg body...

He reached out with sympathy, soothing peace and understanding, a healing balm against the pain that losing a loved one wrought upon those still among the living. He knew it all too well.

Anakin Solo, Mara, Jacen. His father; Obi-Wan, far in the future.

"As Jedi," he said softly, "We are told to rejoice for those who become one with the Force, for they will never be separated from us then. As humans, as sentient beings, we carry those scars on us forever, though they're not visible. Sometimes the two are not so distant as we may think." He swallowed, looking down into his lap. There was still a paler ring around his ring finger where his wedding band. He must not have been wearing it...

"I'm sorry," he said at last. His blue eyes were full of understanding, and a kind of loneliness. "She must have been a lovely woman."

Obi-Wan held stubbornly to his sorrow and regret for a breath, then let it go, let Luke's soothing wash it away. It was enough, to talk about it, to let free the secret from his heart. He could live without Siri, he could uphold the ideals and the Order she had held so dear.

"She was," Obi-Wan smiled, "She was stubborn and dedicated, and so blunt you could break your nose on her opinion of you. You are absolutely right, Luke. If she could see me here, like this, I believe she'd come back to life just to carve a piece out of my hide for it. She was beautiful."

He put a hand on Luke's shoulder, steadying them both, and returned that lonely gaze in kind, "But you are no stranger to this pain, are you?"

Luke smiled sadly. "No," he said. Red hair, green eyes, her voice; some parts of her would come back, every now and then, and in dreams he would tell her all the things he thought he never could have. Somewhere in his apartment on Coruscant, alongside the family holos, was a creased note... and in Leia's apartment, holos of her two dead sons, even the one who had left Luke a widower with a teenage son who had walked dangerously close to the Dark Side.

"The worst betrayals come from those inside your own family," Luke continued quietly. "And the one on the business end of the blade was my wife, Mara." That lonely pain welled up again in him.

"I have always said that if the Jedi Order was made up only of people immune to love, then we would be a sad group, indeed," Obi-Wan let his own sympathy wash against Luke's in turn, offering comfort for comfort. Pain shared is pain halved, wasn't that how the saying went?

"Part of love is the pain that goes with it," He sighed.

"That's something you'd never hear Master Yoda saying," Luke said, trying to bring a little levity back into the conversation. It hurt to talk about Mara, even though he doubted she'd want him to mope around too much--she had always been more practical than that. And yet, it wasn't as though he could simply not mourn for losing the love of his life.

Luke closed his eyes, letting Obi-Wan's return of sympathy buoy him. It was odd thinking that the enigmatic, ageless Obi-Wan had once had a love just as his father had, just as Luke had, but the thought they could all share in their love of strong-willed women made him smile a little bit.

"I'm sorry if I am shattering any pillars of your world, but Master Yoda never quite approved of Master Qui-Gon's teachings, or mine," said Obi-Wan, truthfully, thinking of the meeting in which Anakin's apprenticeship had been reluctantly approved. He was grateful for the change of topic, and let it come easily. Enough darkness and memory for now, "In fact, at one point he referred to the both of us as needlessly defiant. I'm afraid it was great deal more threatening, coming from him, though how he managed to strangle so much disappointment into one sentence, I'll never know."

Luke thought of the various ways Yoda had chastised him for failures in his training--the biggest, he thought as he eyed his cybernetic hand, being the one that had earned him the prosthetic, running off half-charged in his idea of a rescue mission--and smiled a little. "He got better at that over the years, I think. Though he always had a point whenever he said something along those lines to me."

Luke stopped himself there, before he started straying into the why. His training under Yoda had been hurried, things that would have taken initiates years he had had to learn in days or hours even, for there was no time to tarry overlong. The Emperor had been strong, and Luke had had to become even stronger. Natural talent had only so much to do with it.

"Of course, he also had to get me to let go of my impatience, something that was easier said than done." That little grin broke into a full smile.

"What, a young Jedi? Impatient?" Obi-Wan drawled, sarcastically, "Perish the thought, I would never have thought such a thing."

"It does seem to be a tradition among us, doesn't it?" Luke grinned boyishly.

"Well, hand an untrained child a training lightsaber, see how long before he breaks something or gives one of his classmates a fine bruise, pretending he's Master Windu taking on a driod army by himself," Obi-Wan returned with a rising smirk, "It's not pretty."

Thinking of the younglings he'd trained himself--particularly his niece and nephews and their partners in crime--Luke chuckled. "No, it's not. Especially when they think they have something to prove."

"You don't have to tell me, I've got Anakin," Obi-Wan reminded him with a chuckle.

Mediation, Meditation, Inspiration for Itineration [Open]

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