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The Force, it seems, doesn't always play fair.
Anakin streaks across the finish line next to last, tears making trails of clean skin on his dirty face.
"I lost," he says, and Obi-Wan watches as the boy buries his sobs in the rough Bantha wool of his mother's tunic.
"We lost," Qui-Gonn agrees, and Obi-Wan feels anger surge through him like a bolt of lightning.
"We? This was your gamble, master," he says slowly. The sun beats down on his neck, harsh and cruel.
Qui-Gonn bows his head. "Yes. It is my mistake alone. But we will all pay its price."
The sun beats harder. Obi-Wan looks at the handmaid and swallows. She looks back.
"Well done, Jedi," she snaps, teeth gritted. The sand kicks up in swirling eddies about her boots as she marches over to the boy.
"What do we do now?"
With an infuriatingly calm sigh, Qui-Gonn looks down at Obi-Wan. The sun slants about his face and makes him look older and more weathered than he ever had before. "We do the only thing we can do, Obi-Wan. We wait."
As in all things, Qui-Gonn is vague, and so Obi-Wan is left waiting for something he does not know.
He thinks about asking, but his neck and ears are burned and the cot that Shmi procured for him is hard against his back so he's not really in the mood for more cryptic answers.
The ship and the racer are scrapped promptly, and the remaining pilots scatter to find work in the Port, clutching their few possessions that have traveled from one burning home to another.
Qui-Gonn meditates. Obi-Wan does not.
Instead, he gets a job hauling in scrap from the dunes. He wakes up before the twin suns rise and doesn't get back to the hut until they've set. He cuts his hands and twisted bits of metal and gets shoved about by the other scrappers.
He's walking back into town with his finds slung over his back when he sees the handmaiden Padmé.
engaged in a gambling game with a tall orange alien. He slows his walk, trudging by to see the outcome.
She wins, and when she catches his eye she smiles. It's not a terribly fond smile, but it makes Obi-Wan's chest light anyway. He's always been only a man, after all.
She jogs over with her winnings.
"How does a queen's handmaid learn to gamble?" Obi-Wan asks.
She shrugs. "Listening. Reading."
"Have you thought about going into politics? I'm told dishonesty will get you quite far there."
He senses something twist in Padmé, something sad and a little frustrated, but the amusement in her smile is genuine and anyway, he doesn't know her well enough to really sense her.
"I've thought about it," she admits. "You foresee it in my future or something?"
He chuckles. There's a rock in his boot. "Not exactly."
Shmi's outside sweeping sand off the front path. Obi-Wan can sense Anakin, laughing as he plays with the other slaves in the row.
"Welcome back, dear. The job treating you alright?" Shmi asks. Her voice is soft and Obi-Wan can just remember his own mother, kissing his forehead as he left for Coruscant.
"As well as can be expected, I'm afraid," he admits, letting the bag of scrap metal slip from his grasp and into the dust with a clatter. "Anakin can rifle through that. See if there's anything he likes."
Shmi's smile is tired, sand settled in the creases of her face. "You're so kind, Jedi."
The title feels cold in Obi-Wan's throat.
"Just Obi-Wan. For now."
Padmé's eyes are curious as she looks up at him and for a moment Obi-Wan wonders if she can sense him.
Qui-Gonn's eyes are closed as he sits on his cot. Obi-Wan ignores him. He hasn't heard his master's voice for weeks.
He levitates a pot down from the cabinet and starts to chop vegetables for dinner.
What troubles you, my padawan?
Obi-Wan starts, turning with a glare as Qui-Gonn's voice echoes in his mind. It's faint and cold, as if from far away.
"We're stranded on Tatooine, master. I've been working nonstop to make ends meets. I miss my own home in the temple."
A small smile plays on Qui-Gonn's lips.
Are you suddenly so opposed to hardship?
Obi-Wan huffs, turning back to dinner. No more cryptic answers. He doesn't have the luxury of being cryptic anymore. Tatooine is physical, sweat and heat and hard, cruel words.
Qui-Gonn doesn't join them for dinner.
You've been neglecting your training.
Obi-Wan rolls over, facing the clay wall of the hut. The callouses on his hands catch against the blanket.
"Don't you think helping these people is training enough to become a keeper of peace, master?"
The boldness of his words surprise him.
Hm. Perhaps. And yet, a Jedi is called to something higher. It is within any man to be kind.
"You make it sound like a bad thing, master."
The dune bugs chirp outside. Obi-Wan strains his ears. He receives no response.
Anger rises in the pit of his chest, blotted and red like the Mustafar sky. It aches, burning parts of him that he had kept free for so long. He clenches his fists against the cot, the cuts on his knuckles reopening.
Padmé sighs in her sleep. Obi-Wan dreams about an oasis made of chromium gold, set ablaze by the sun.
When he wakes up, the suns are starting to rise.
"I've been having this dream lately."
Padmé laughs as she runs her hand over a display of stone and shell necklaces. The rough-looking alien behind the counter grunts, watching her with three beady eyes.
"Are they showing you your future?" she asks, ducking between colorfully clothed stalls.
Obi-Wan darts after her, cloak pulled tight to his hips to avoid snagging. He left his saber in the hut to avoid theft. His body feels lighter.
"I doubt it," he laughs. "Unless you know of a metal oasis on Tatooine."
"Sounds romantic," Padmé quips. She passes between overhangs and the sun catches her hair, frizzy and tangled from days of desert work. It gleams golden and Obi-Wan's heart beats against his ribcage.
"We'll go look for it, then," Obi-Wan hears himself say.
"You going to lead us with the Force, Jedi?"
Padmé's voice is distant again as she examines a stall packed with tiny glass spheres. They're filled with a shifting substance, catching the sunlight as it filters through the tents in a swirling rainbow.
"Don't know if we'll need the Force to find a metal oasis," Obi-Wan remarks, picking up one of the spheres. It's cold and smooth against his hand. "I think it will stick out."
The merchant grunts. "Lookin' for the golden oasis, eh? These little babies migh' be able ta help yeh. Guide yer path, y'know."
Padmé looks entranced. Obi-Wan chuckles.
"Thanks, but no thanks. We don't need - "
"Here."
Padmé slides the merchant some credits and slips one of the spheres into her satchel. The merchant grins toothily and waves as she walks off.
"You know she was just trying to make a sale, Padmé."
She frowns. "I'm not naïve, Jedi. Can't I just think they're pretty? Is that so much to ask? I'm tired of sand."
It occurs to Obi-Wan that his head itches and his toes feel clogged with sand. Nevertheless, he trudges along.
"I guess it can be hard to find beauty here," he says, placing a hand on Padmé's shoulder in a friendly manner. "And would it kill you to call me Obi-Wan?"
Her face is red from the sun. She looks up at him, a smile dancing in her eyes.
Obi-Wan smiles back.
When they return to the hut, Qui-Gonn is frowning. He does not ask why.
As it turns out, Tattooine is a planet with its own history and traditions, however blunted and buried they have become beneath the sand.
"Mom! Just five more minutes!"
Shmi crosses her arms as she leans out the hut's back door. The setting sun slips into the weathering on her face, making her motherly, disapproving glare all the more imposing.
"No, Ani. You'll be up all night for the solstice tomorrow. You go to bed early tonight."
Grumbling, Anakin trudges inside. He hangs his head in a way that Obi-Wan had watched younger padawans do to attempt to gain sympathy from the old masters.
Like the masters, Shmi is unmoved.
"What's the solstice?" Padmé asks.
Qui-Gonn folds his hands in his lap. His hair looks less grey than it has, Obi-Wan notices. "It's the summer solstice. The longest day in a Tattooine cycle. The sun never goes down, as a sign of the sun god's desire to stay with his people. He uses all his strength to do it but once a cycle."
Shmi chuckles. "Or it's an excuse to stay up too late with your friends and be too tired for work in the morning."
She sets a few plates in the washbasin to be cleaned later. "It's no life for a child. He should be able to sleep late and run about. The schedules and the work...without so much as a thank you."
It doesn't sound so far from being a young padawan, Obi-Wan decides. His lightsaber sits heavy at his belt.
"Excuse me," he says, retreating to his cot. Padmé opens her mouth to call after him, but doesn't.
You want to free them, don't you?
Obi-Wan sighs, shaking the dust off his boot and onto the packed sand floor. "Is that so wrong?"
Compassion is the way of the Jedi. But you are not moved by merely that, are you, my young padawan?
"Does it really matter, master? Is wanting to do good not enough?"
You mustn't let your feelings cloud your decisions, Obi-Wan. There has been a storm growing in your heart. I have sensed it.
Obi-Wan says nothing. Qui-Gonn relents, and leaves him be.
That night, the oasis in his dream is shrouded in fog as the rain pours around it, cool against his skin.
The market is alive for the solstice. Painted cloth banners and exotic scents float in the breeze. Children dash about, kites tangled round their tiny fists and strings of shells and stones and flowers jingle from their ankles and necks.
Watto finds in his heart - or equivalent organ - to let Anakin off after midday. The scrapper head is kind enough to do the same, so Obi-Wan and the boy are making their way through the stalls before the shadows have even begun to stretch across the sands.
"Jed - Obi-Wan!"
Padmé drapes a wreath of sunblooms over his head. "To attract the sun god's favor."
Obi-Wan laughs. "Perhaps I'll need it."
Anakin darts off into the crowd. They let him go.
"It's so lively today. I almost don't miss Naboo," Padmé sighs.
Obi-Wan hums. "I've almost forgotten what my quarters back on Coruscant looked like. Although there wasn't much to see, I suppose."
"It's like living in a bubble back home. Here, you're in the middle of the ocean," the handmaiden remarks.
"Careful. You're starting to sound like Qui-Gonn."
She laughs. Her hand steals into his.
Obi-Wan elects not to stay up all night. He watches Padmé pour water onto the plant she bought from the bazaar. A sunbloom, the merchant assured her.
"You certain that's not too much water?"
"They need a lot." Padmé replies.
The night, the storm falls harder on the oasis. The raindrops drum out strange music as they hit the metal leaves. He tosses and turns and wakes up halfway falling out of the cot, disoriented.
In the light of the rising suns, he can see Padmé's sunbloom starting to sprout.
One day in the scrapyard, one of the Junkers starts a fight with one of the kids. Obi-Wan tries to intervene. Someone elbows him in the ribs. He swings at another's shoulder. A clawed hand grabs him by the braid and yanks.
He knocks them the ground. The braid sits in their palm as they curse, hissing in pain.
Obi-Wan feels dizzy. His scalp aches.
When he returns to the shack, Qui-Gonn says nothing.
The oasis is underwater now. The salt burns his eyes. He cannot breathe.
Padmé takes him drinking to one of the cantinas.
Sour hookah smoke fills the air. Languages from all corners of the galaxy buzz incessantly together like a hive of Spaxtond gnats. Drunken scrappers sing along off-key to the band's squeaky, shaky music.
Obi-Wan loves it.
"Do they let Jedis go to bars?" Padmé asks, her voice loud over the din even in their quiet corner.
Obi-Wan chuckles. "Not like this, no. What about handmaids?"
"We have to make our own fun," Padmé admits. "Unlike the Jedi."
The man in the booth across from them snorts. "Jedi? Don't even mention that bullshit around me."
Once, Obi-Wan would have bristled indignantly at this. Padmé glances at him like she expects him to. But now he only feels a bittersweet ache in his stomach.
"Why not, my friend?"
"Cuz they're all talk, that's why. You seen what it's like for folks out here. No glory in helpin' us. That's why you don't see no Jedi, neither."
The retort Obi-Wan would once have had dies in his throat.
"I see your point."
He gets drunk quickly on rancid, burning alcoholic concoctions. Padmé joins him, and when they stumble back to the hut he kisses her and she tastes like fireworks.
The oasis is an oasis again, a sunrise rippling across the pond.
He and Qui-Gonn never talk about it. But Obi-Wan knows he's not a Jedi anymore.
He's just a man.
Why, Obi-Wan?
He sighs.
"The Force led me elsewhere."
Destiny is a winding road. Are you sure you have not strayed too far off the path?
"I guess I'm not sure. It's kind of exciting, really," Obi-Wan chuckles to himself.
And for the briefest moment, Qui-Gonn'a mouth twitches like a smile.
You are wise, Obi-Wan. You are capable. Whether or not you are my student, I have faith in you.
And the weight is gone.
Obi-Wan remembers to water the sunbloom. The tips of the green bud have begun to fade to gold.
The head scrapper gives Obi-Wan the job of bin transport. He gets a speeder, beat up and dusty. The other scrappers call him over with shouts of "Bin!" that become slightly different in the sandy winds.
He starts going by Ben.
Padmé says it suits him.
It's hard to say how long they've been on Tatooine now, after what feels like a thousands suns have come and gone. The sunbloom has blossomed into a whole bush, golden petals glinting with each new day.
Obi-Wan's hands are bruised and tough and he can't quite wield a saber like he used to but it's been worth it because now Shmi is her own woman with her own house and Anakin goes to school and Watto can only watch with sour eyes.
There's been talk of revolt around the dusty town. The words of people who were once strangers are spreading into homes and businesses.
Padmé's starting to miss the stars.
Qui-Gonn stays in the hut, cooking and regaling Shmi and C-3PO with stories. He's not so stiff now.
The Jedi are gone from Tatooine. No one seems to mind.
Padmé has a ring on her finger and the corners of Obi-Wan's eyes have started to show signs of sun-weathering when a Republic shuttle lands in the space port.
Senator Palpatine steps out, lip curling against the sands and sun as his robes whip about in the desert breeze.
The guards search the city for the runaway queen and the Jedi and the ship.
They report back to Palpatine with news of a recent wedding and a large family in the dune neighborhood and the stirrings of revolution.
They return empty-handed.
"Qui-Gonn?"
Yes, my friend?
The desert sun streams through the windows into the new, clean hut. Anakin's school projects hang on the wall. A new sunbloom sits in a pot by Qui-Gonn's bed, just beginning its fade to gold.
"Was all this supposed to happen?"
Qui-Gonn smiles, chuckling to himself.
In another life, perhaps not. But I have come to learn it is foolish to rely on destiny so. It does not matter what should have happened; only what did.
It's as good an answer as any, Obi-Wan decides, but he doesn't have time to respond because the baby is crying and Anakin's frantic about his girlfriend and the twin suns have started to set over the recently freed desert.