Chapter Text
Qui-Gon rises out of his meditation. He scarcely knows where to look first.
The Temple has changed. There is no trace of autumn now in the green tangle of vines growing over the broken Temple roof, so thick with leaves that the sunlight only comes through in small patches.
And there is a peace on Obi-Wan’s face that had not been there the night before.
“You’ve been busy,” Qui-Gon observes, tilting his head to look up at the greenery that now makes up the ceiling. He holds up a hand to catch the dappled light. The mouska vines are blossoming as though it is early spring. White petals drift to the ground, spinning lazily through the still air.
A single dimple appears on his padawan’s cheek. “It was a long night.”
Tahl raises her head as well, letting the green light fall upon her face. “I can feel the Force flowing through this place,” she breathes. “You brought the Temple back to life, Obi-Wan.”
“It was all your teaching,” Obi-Wan says. “Yours and Qui-Gon’s. You showed me how it might be possible. I never had much talent for the living Force.”
Qui-Gon can’t help it—he laughs, much to his padawan’s bewilderment. “You have always been strong in the living Force,” he tells Obi-Wan. “You made a new friend on every new world we visited, you negotiated peace in disputes where even I could not get the others to agree. Animals find you wherever you go and eat out of your hand. How could you never suspect that you might have a talent for the living Force?”
Obi-Wan is looking at him in astonishment. “I never thought of it like that.”
Tahl is running her fingers along the glossy leaves of glida lilies that have sprung up overnight in the edges of the stone walls. “The fragrance is heavenly. Do you suppose you could organize some similar floral arrangements in the archives?”
“I’ll do my best,” Obi-Wan promises her. Qui-Gon’s gaze is caught by the lightsaber held tightly in his padawan’s hands.
“May I have the honor?” he asks, and Obi-Wan passes him the hilt. When he presses the ignition button, a deep green blade emerges.
He can feel the energy of the blade, eager as the wind that billows through the grasses on the hills below the Temple, but steady as a mountain.
“You’ve changed,” Qui-Gon says quietly.
“Not so very much,” Obi-Wan argues. “I’m no different than I’ve always been. I’m still your padawan.”
“Not for much longer, I should think.”
Obi-Wan takes a breath, but he does not disagree. Qui-Gon holds the saber above his padawan’s shoulder, level to his chin.
“By the will of the Force, by the right of the Order,” he murmurs, and Obi-Wan’s braid falls into his waiting hand. He passes the blade to Tahl, and she speaks the same words and shears off the short braid on the other side.
Tahl touches the braid lightly. “I am very pleased, Obi-Wan, that you found your way.”
The green light, moving in patterns of shadow across the floor of the atrium, the fragrance of starflowers drifting up from the hills outside. He has dreamed of this, dreamed of such a moment but had never thought it anything but a fantasy.
He wraps the chestnut braid around his fingers. It is just long enough to wind around his wrist.
“I suppose soon you’ll be off on your own,” Qui-Gon says wistfully.
There is an impish look in Obi-Wan’s eyes, under that stray lock of hair falling in his face.
“Not so very far away, I think,” he says. “I belong here. With the Temple. And with you.”
It is only then that Qui-Gon recognizes what he means.
“You are the guardian,” he realizes. “The Temple chose you.”
“It needs me,” Obi-Wan says with certainty. “Come, and I’ll show you.”
He holds out his hands expectantly. Tahl takes one, and Qui-Gon takes the other.
He can still see the green light streaming down from above when he closes his eyes. Then the living Force wraps around him and lifts him up.
There is Tahl, steady and white-gold, their connection to each other nearly boundless. And now there is his sense of Obi-Wan, much the same as always, but with a new added depth to him, like roots sinking deep in the ground. He can sense Obi-Wan’s link to the nexus, the current of energy that flows from the Temple like a river running over a cliff. There is more, much more beyond that, if only Qui-Gon can catch a glimpse...
There’s more to see, Obi-Wan calls from up ahead. Come on.
Show me the way, he responds, and as he watches, Tahl and Obi-Wan disappear over the edge of the cliff.
Then the living Force beckons, and Qui-Gon leaps after them.