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There are few things as corrosive as regret. The sand of Tatooine is one such element. It blisters and scrapes along every crevice of the modest, dome-shaped hut—newly-built and already half-buried by sandstorms and wind—and it ruins half the machinery there within the first year. Obi-Wan Kenobi will, on his bad days, curse the sand in every language he knows.
On his worst days, he hurts too much to care.
The Force is a gift that connects all life, but the bond between Jedi is something truly special. Obi-Wan has been in tune with the Force for quite some time, and he is in harmony with his fellow Jedi, too; bonds bind the Order together, and every Jedi has some measure of connection.
Through that deep and trembling connection, Obi-Wan feels them die. Each and every one—the warriors, the guardians, the non-combatants, the healers, the padawans, the younglings. He feels ten thousand lives vanish in an instant.
Before the deaths, before the blood, before the great purge that destroys everything he loves, he feels his men go dark at once, but not with the void of death, and then the Force is screaming all around him and he is falling down, down, down into the deeps. Around him, ten thousand Jedi die as one, brothers and sisters, friends, mentors and students and family.
They die, and for a moment that lasts longer than it should, Obi-Wan Kenobi prays that he will die with them and not have to face what comes next.
The Sith have enacted their revenge with the anger of millennia, and Obi-Wan has almost died for it.
It does not matter how many years pass. Nothing can erase the pain of that single terrible day, and nothing can take away Anakin Skywalker’s hate-filled screams as Obi-Wan turns his back on his brother. He loved Anakin; how could he not? He practically raised the boy, taught him everything he knew, counseled him and trusted him and protected him, and it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Nothing would ever be enough.
Qui-Gon on Naboo. Satine on Mandalore. Bright young Ahsoka, when she walked away and then again when the clones went dark. Padmé, who never should have died. Cody, who had been his friend and who had shot him off a cliff. The rest of his men. Anakin. Anakin. He walks away from his former padawan and leaves him to die on Mustafar, and if he collapses onto the sands of Tatooine when the darkness has settled on the galaxy and all is over, if he screams so loudly that his throat is hoarse, only the Jundland Wastes can hear him.
He learns as he goes. He learns that he can communicate with the Tusken Raiders through a form of hand signals that he picks up in his free time, which is all the time; he has nothing to do but tinker with machinery, and that only reminds him of his lineage, of Anakin and of their shared padawan. Obi-Wan was never good at mechanics, really; that was always Anakin’s job.
He learns more. He speaks a few words of huttese; he picks up more and more in Mos Eisley, no matter how much he hates the backwater town. It’s no Coruscant, that’s for sure, and he does not appreciate the prying eyes.
He learns how to read the sandstorms, then how to feel them deep in the Force. Tatooine is hot and dry and miserable, but he can take delight for a moment as he sweeps out his consciousness to encompass the swirling cloud of sand; when he snaps back into himself, particles of dirt have risen to form a Force-still sandstorm in miniature around him. He lets it linger for a moment before the sand drops back to the ground where it belongs.
Once, someone asks about his people down in a cantina he ducks into against his better judgement. He gives a two-word answer. They’re dead . It’s true. Ten thousand Jedi, and how many of them lived? Master Yoda, he knows. Did anyone else? Are they truly the last?
But he does not and cannot explain this to the frightened young twi’lek man, who simply nods and offers his quiet condolences. As it happens, he lost his entire colony to a purge. Vader, he says, glancing around as though a stormtrooper is hiding in the shadowed corners. Obi-Wan shudders. With a wave of his hand, the twi’lek is wandering off, green lekku swinging behind him.
Obi-Wan does not go back to that cantina for a number of years.
The true great tragedy of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s life is here and now in the desert sands: a Jedi alone, a warrior with no chance to fight, a peacekeeper surrounded by blood and bone. But he is a negotiator, and he is a fighter, and he will take that pain and forge it into the fire he needs to keep his head above the sand.
He is not a Mandalorian, not by a long shot. He spent a year on Mandalore as a padawan, just enough to pick up the language and a few customs, and then spent more time with his Mando-raised vod’e (he still aches to think of all those beautiful, unique minds wiped out with the Jedi). He has no claim to Mando’ade rights.
But there is a night when the stars are dark and the sands are empty, when Obi-Wan Kenobi dons his cloak, picks up his lightsaber, strides into the desert, and sits down in the valley between dunes. There are no storms coming; he will be safe, at least for a little bit. So he sits and closes his eyes, then sinks himself into the Force and begins to speak.
He does not say ten thousand names, but he says as many as he can. Qui-Gon Jinn. Mace Windu. Kit Fisto. Plo Koon. Aayla Secura. Ki-Adi-Mundi. Ahsoka Tano, and that one pains him more than most, that girl who only wanted to help. Cody. The rest of the 212th, or as many as he can remember. Padmé Amidala.
He says his remembrances, offers them up to the living Force and the desert around him, then he sinks his lightsaber blade into the sand and cries.
He leaves before sunup, lightsaber once again hidden in the folds of his robes. He heads back out the next night, and the next, until he has cried out every name that’s been weighing on his chest since Vader and Mustafar, and only then does he look down at his ignited blade and offer up the final name.
Anakin Skywalker.
He turns away from the empty desert and walks back to his hut. For the first time in a very long time, the Force feels whole when he reaches for it; the wound will never heal completely, but it will scab. It will scar over. The Jedi will return, and Obi-Wan Kenobi will be there when they rise.
Obi-Wan Kenobi will spend the last nineteen years of his life on Tatooine, watching little Luke Skywalker grow up and choking down the taste of sorrow like ashes on his tongue. He will go by Ben Kenobi, then by Old Ben as the sand whittles him down. He will be fifty-seven years old when he becomes one with the living Force, and his former padawan, former friend, and former brother will kill him. His death will be one thing he does not regret. Luke Skywalker will be another.
And Obi-Wan Kenobi will not live to see it, but he will feel the Force around him heal.