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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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.

"I sure wouldn't want to train me, so I can only imagine what my father was like." Luke smiled. "He can't always have been as he is now. What was he like, Ben? As a child?"

"He was...impulsive, but very talented," Obi-Wan smiled, remembering how Anakin had declared even then that he could 'handle' anything, "Without any training, he piloted a fighter at seven years old, and contributed meaningfully to a battle in orbit. He built a protocol droid and a pod-racer all by himself, from scrap-metal and garbage, and won a race in it."

A snorted laugh made him shake his head, grinning at the memory, "But that was before we took him in. He got better as a Padawan, though I could do without the constant reminders of how many times his risky maneuvers have saved my hide."

"So that's where Leia's kids and I get our mechanical and piloting bents," Luke said, smiling. "Well, their father's sure a good pilot too." He paused a moment, head tipped forward a bit. "How was he as a Padawan? I've heard you talk about how difficult he is, but it was said of Father that he was one of the most skilled Jedi of the time."

"It's the truth, though the way he does it, it seems more than half luck," Obi-Wan chuckled, "I like to complain, but it's only talk. He's like a brother to me, and what kind of brother would I be if I didn't make fun of him? He was a good padawan, dedicated and a quick learner. I'll admit he's impulsive, but I've come to think of it more as his own direct style. He's a warrior, through and through, and we've needed Jedi like that as much as any other. We can't all be diplomats."

Thinking of Kyp Durron, who preferred doing to sitting around and talking, and other Jedi who had insisted on the same, Luke nodded his agreement. "Sometimes we need those who would rather take action to keep those of us who have become too much the diplomat in the proper perspective."

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Mediation, Meditation, Inspiration for Itineration [Open]

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