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Chapter Text

The main training salle is a gleaming arena of paradoxes, ordered chaos, an arena divided by thin lines of restraint and desperation. There is convergence in the Force, to be sure. To the initiates that twirl and dance about each other, cloaked in tongues of sapphire and emerald flame, today is a crossroad in the Unifying Force; a day in which an age-old tradition among the Order may be honoured, the bond between that of a Master and Padawan forged; or a day of disappointment, at the end of which pain would dissipate into the flowing currents of the Living Force.

Perhaps a divergence, after all. Two paths. That of a Padawan, a path-seeker, or the other – unthinkable. Unbearable, failure.

Master Cin Drallig's sharp voice snaps an order, and eighteen blades hiss back into their hilts like hot iron in seawater, sending frustration, battle-joy and focussed energy dissipating into the air, leaving the Force glowing, heated, like the fumes in a sword-forge after the completion of a blade.

A murmur sweeps though the knights and masters gathered on the observation platform as the breathless hum of two lightsabers remain, as discordant as their wielders.

"Initiate Chun! Initiate Kenobi!" Master Drallig's bark is as cutting as any whip. "Cease!"

One of the two boys, one with as rich red-brown hair as the other's is white, flings a glance at Master Drallig as he flips backwards to dodge his opponent's wild swing. Sky-blue eyes hold a mix of desperation and measured control.

Cin Drallig's eyes narrow in understanding. "Initiate Chun," he calls, voice dropping dangerously low.

But it is unlikely the boy called Bruck Chun can hear the Jedi master's voice over his own battle-cries.

"Pick up your feet, Kenobi," the white-haired twelve-year-old snarls at the boy opposite. "Since you're so eloquent with a lightsaber, why don't you open that mouth of yours and say something back?"

Shocked affront radiates from the observation platform.

Kenobi's lips press into a thin line, and while his movements had been entirely defensive following Master Drallig's orders, his wrist twitches, betraying an urge to strike even as his Force-presence blazes with incandescent light.

Mutterings of approval spread like forest winds through the gathered audience as the initiate sinks deeper into the Force, its very eddies seeming to cradle every parry and block as he moves through the light, biding his time in a slow dance of patience until a quick movement disarms his opponent, sending two halves of a training saber's hilt skidding across the marked floor.

Obi-Wan Kenobi retracts his saber and gives the merest of bows to his opponent, before pivoting seamlessly and sinking into a deep and apologetic bow to Master Drallig.

The Battlemaster-to-be regards him keenly for a moment, then favours him with a wry smile. "Well fought, Initiate Kenobi."

The boy nods his thanks, and files out of the salle with the rest of his age-mates, too tired to notice the spectacle of several Jedi masters heading towards Bruck Chun with thunderous expressions on their faces.

"Done well, you have, Obi-Wan," Master Yoda humphs at him by the exit.

Obi-Wan manages an exhausted bow, then turns to leave.

Throughout it all, the sparring match, the taunts, receiving praise, he has not said a word.

Up on the now-empty observation balcony, Mace Windu turns to his old friend. "What did you think, Qui-Gon? Any caught your eye?"

Qui-Gon Jinn folds his hands into opposite sleeves, the very epitome of the grave Jedi Master. "None, Mace," he replies. "I have told you before, have I not? I will not take another padawan. But," he relents, "I am interested in something else entirely. That Initiate…Kenobi, was it? I'd like to speak to him."

The Korun master's expression folds into a grimace. "Ah, Qui, now that's just the thing…"

(:~:)

Obi-Wan lingers on the overgrown path of the inner solarium, basking in the late afternoon warmth. The Force drifts lazily here, but clearly, like the quiet but steady crystal of the meandering brook at his feet. This garden is a cloister, a hidden paradise sequestered away in an oft-forgotten corner of the Temple. It has not the chuckling water of the Room of a Thousand Fountains, or the cacophony of muffled murmurs that are the Archives. Here, there is silence.

Obi-Wan can almost hear himself speak.

He has often imagined what his own voice would be like. Having never had the chance to vocalise that wish, Obi-Wan can only dream. I'd like a nice voice, he muses. Not as deep as Master Bondara's…but not as gruff as Master Piell's. A singing voice! For a moment, Obi-Wan is not under sun and sky but rather in the sleeping rooms of the crèche, soothing Bant's nightmares from her with a lullaby.

But the dream fades as quickly as the soaring in his heart, and all is silent once more.

But perhaps that is for the best.

Here, in the heady air where even the Force lies wordless, Obi-Wan is one with the Force, welcomed, cherished. He can speak to the twisting branches above and shivering leaves below, for they are silent, and so is he. Here there is a peace deeper than meditation can offer.

Obi-Wan folds himself onto his knees, closes his eyes, and listens.

The barest of breezes catches the last of his cold sweat from his sparring match and brushes it away, refreshing him in the scent of freshly crushed leaves. There are flashes of bright life in the Force – a napping dormouse with its litter under a tree there, sudden birdsong thrumming the network of silver-limned boughs above – small sounds that do not disturb the silence. Obi-Wan is not meditating, not exactly. He centres himself, but not in the manner that he has been taught. He is the centre, for there is no centre. The galaxy seems to halt in the flow of time and suck in a breathless gasp of wonder as for a moment, a young boy merges with the Force and finds in its iridescent depths the music of the spheres.

The sharp clack of a gimer stick jerks Obi-Wan out of his trance with uncharacteristic lack of aplomb.

Yoda's gimlet eyes hold measured mirth. "Brooding, are you, young one?"

Obi-Wan shakes his head rapidly, only to still himself in mortification when he realises the lack of control in the motion. A blush creeps up his cheeks.

"Humph. Brooding, you were not. Brooding, you are now."

A shift of surprise, followed by a slow dip of the head. Yes, master, comes the silent reply.

"Back to the crèche with you," Yoda huffs, the Force around alight with suppressed glee and hidden knowledge. "Dwell not on trying."

Acknowledgement shines in two grey-blue eyes as Obi-Wan makes first one bow, and then a second towards a seemingly empty wall, before scurrying off. As the red-brown mop of hair disappears around the corner, Yoda finally lets his amusement bubble forth in quiet chuckles. "Thoughts have you, Master Windu?"

Mace Windu sports a contrite grin of his own as he emerges from the shadows. "How in nine hells did he sense me? I kept my Force-signature tightly furled."

Yoda's stick raps a line across the Korun master's shins. "A good match, is it not?" he mutters gruffly.

Mace has the good sense to ignore the ache in his calves as he replies. "It certainly seems like the will of the Force. We just have to convince that old desert djinn to choose the boy as his apprentice. Then the two of them could brood up a dark hole in the Force." He bites back a curse as Yoda's stick lands across his knees again in a solid thwack.

"Interfere too much, we must not!" A clawed hand tightens on the knobbly wood. "If will of the Force it is, then decided, it shall be."

Master Windu feels every bit the padawan again as he makes a deep bow to the most revered head of the Jedi Order. "Yes, Master."

"Hmmph. Good." Yoda's tone suddenly changes, as abruptly as the topic. "Late, it is. Tea, padawan?"

(:~:)

Qui-Gon Jinn professes no little embarrassment for his so obviously uncentred state as the turbolift deposits him in front of the tenth-level crèches. Well, by professes, it remains that the knowledge is contained within a cool mask of perfect Jedi calm.

His determination wavers, however, when faced with a once-plain door lettered in lurid colours, The Dragon Clan/Jedi Master Ali-Alann. It wavers even further when the shrieking of a dozen sugar-fueled force-sensitive younglings stab into his ears through solid durasteel.

Qui-Gon grimaces as he remembers that tonight is the one night of the week in which the crèchelings are given dessert. Thoughts dart through his mind. The voice of reason wars with the voice of excuse. A negotiator knows when to withdraw, he muses. Only by conceding a momentary retreat can one push forward at a later time. With his thought happily in place, Qui-Gon pivots on one booted foot, turns, and–

The door slides open behind him, and the booming voice of Ali Alann assaults his eardrums. "Qui-Gon! To what do I owe the pleasure, old friend?"

With an efficiency born from years of practice, Qui-Gon plasters a convincing smile on his face and reverses his direction smoothly. "Good evening, Ali," he says, pleasantly enough.

"Come in, come in," Ali replies brusquely, waving Qui-Gon in with a broad hand. Qui-Gon and Ali Alaan are of about the same height – tower-like – but Master Alaan is built much more stoutly. Qui Gon hides his amusement at the notion that his friend could herd younglings simply by wading though them.

As the crèche master insists on bustling into the next room to make tea, Qui-Gon finds himself sat rather uncomfortably on a play bench far too low for his long limbs. He faces the younglings. And sucks in a slow breath. Patience.

There might as well be twelve krayt dragons in front of him instead of twelve Jedi Initiates. Proper Jedi Initiates are calm, reserved; these unholy terrors must surely belong to some other Order. A bolo-ball rebounds between the children like some demented ballistic missile. The metal surface of the sphere never really touches hands or feet or tunics, but must be subject to immense g-forces as Force pushes explode at it from all directions. Force-bolo is listed in the Archives as a common Force-control exercise for younglings, but the long-held and greatly humoured rumour within the higher ranks is that the game was invented during the Great Sith Wars to prepare younglings for battle.

Qui-Gon snorts. It certainly looks like it. Dragon Clan, aptly named.

But he is wrong, apparently. For while it first seemed that this particular crèche is home to twelve krayt dragons, in reality, there are only eleven. The twelfth, and somehow separate, is Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Qui-Gon had at first thought that the screams of exhilaration issued from twelve hoarse throats, but Obi-Wan's lips are tightly shut, a thin line of concentration. Sweat beads his short spiky hair, runs down the one longer tress that could, someday in the future, be twisted into a padawan braid. For a sudden, clear instant, Qui-Gon almost fancies he sees a vision. Almost, because he is a Living Force user, through and through. Could I be the one to braid that lock of hair? Qui-Gon leans forward abruptly, piercing azure eyes fixed on Obi-Wan's movements.

Obi-Wan's leaps and twists in midair are as excited and joyous as the others' around him, but in those seemingly innocent movements, Qui-Gon observes more. A Soresu stance here, Ataru backflip there, melding perfectly into a precise Force-push that lances into the bolo-ball and whips it in a perfect trajectory past six other small heads into the waiting goal-box.

Qui-Gon feels a grin tug at his lips even as a stray thought darts into his mind: the boy must be taught restraint. That Force-push had flair, certainly, but it could also easily have broken the nose of another initiate. He notices Obi-Wan's eyes are already darting over the floor, undoubtedly plotting another path to victory. Another lesson to be taught – victory is not the sole pursuit of a Jedi.

But it does not escape Qui-Gon that while his age-mates run, Obi-Wan dances.

A sweet cup of honeyed tea appears by his elbow. You've come to take away one of mine, I see," Ali Alann sighs, his voice a mixture of pride and a slight touch of sorrow. "What can I say? The Code forbids attachment, but I love them all anyway. They're just so precious."

Qui-Gon formulates an answer while he sips the warm brew. "Rest assured, Master Alann," he chuckles. "At least for now. I am simply obliging a whim."

Ali Alann raises an eyebrow. Crèche master he is, but Jedi master, also. He is not so easily fooled. "Of course," he replies, nodding graciously at his friend. He allows a pregnant pause to give his following words as much bruising strength as possible on Qui-Gon's ego. "…I assume this is about Obi-Wan?" Ali asks. Or states. There really isn't a difference.

His face wiped carefully blank, Qui-Gon reflects that Ali Alann is probably more suited to a career in politics and peacekeeping. That perceptive Sithspawn. "What can you tell me about him?" he murmurs into his teacup. He will not concede defeat by directly replying to the question.

"Well, he's perfect. Or very near to perfect, as far as an Initiate goes," Ali Alann mutters, idly swirling his tea. "He's whole light-years ahead of his age-group in 'saber skills – he's mastered all the basic required forms for Shii-Cho and is moving on to specialising in some of the more modern forms. According to masters Drallig and Boondara, he's chosen Ataru, with some Soresu on the side." A sly grin. "You could teach him plenty."

Qui-Gon waves the loaded question away as he does the steam from his tea. "Force-skills?"

Ali Alann flicks a finger at the holo-ball match. Qui-Gon nods. No further explanation needed.

"And then there's his proficiency in academics." Master Alann's tone has taken on a world-weary air of parental pride. "He would spend the whole day, every day in the Archives if Madame Nu would let him – she's got a soft spot for him, you know that? – And when he comes out, he usually has an armful of holo-books. Politics, History, Philosophy – he quotes Chakora Seva in his writings. I could give you some samples if you want."

Qui-Gon doesn't know whether to laugh or to stare incredulously. "That would be appreciated."

A pause, in which the tea is nearly all consumed and distraction nearly spent.

"Weaknesses?"

"He's very, very strong in the Unifying Force. I know you think it doesn't really matter whether we belong to the Living or Unifying, but he has visions nearly every night. I don't think he's had a normal dream since age three. This is when his Force-skills are but a shadow of what they could be – try dealing with it in the field."

Qui-Gon winces. "That is unfortunate."

Ali Alann begins to speak, and then catches himself. He takes a quick breath. "Qui, he's–"

"I know."

The crèche master sets down his tea with a tired movement. "It shouldn't interfere with his life as a Jedi… but given the nature of most of your missions, I don't know whether…"

"I'll think about it." Qui-Gon knows he has just admitted outright to his interest in Obi-Wan to be his Padawan, but the problem of negotiation remains. What padawan of a peacekeeper and mediator could not debate?

A voice breaks into his thoughts.

"They'll enter a food-coma soon," Ali Alann observes dispassionately as the children's movements slow. "Thank the Force. I need a full night's sleep for once."

"Ali…"

"I'll give you five minutes with him. You can come back tomorrow if you want."

A grateful nod. "You have my thanks."

Ali Alann gathers the empty cups. "Qui-Gon. I know I can trust you to be tactful." Something in his voice belies worry.

"Lessons are not taught by tact alone."

For a moment, the crèche master sounds suspiciously like Master Tahl Uvain. "Don't give me that negotiator drivel. I get that often enough from Obi-Wan."

A small laugh from Qui-Gon. A rarity, nowadays, ever since Xan–

He breaks off the thought and spends the next few minutes in half-meditation.

And all too soon, Ali Alann ushers him into the crèche's sleep chamber, where huge blue-grey eyes stare expressively at him.

As he opens his mouth to speak, a small part of Qui-Gon grieves for this boy who will never do the same, and fears for himself, for pity is a path to attachment, and attachment the path to Dark.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan doesn't quite know what to make of Master Qui-Gon Jinn.

His Force-presence certainly identifies him as a Master. It is anchored into the very air around him, wrapped in currents about each movement like the famed Aurora Borealis, visible in the northern reaches of Hoth and magic to a young Initiate's imagination. The Living Force practically breathes in him; the anchor is not an unmovable one, but one melded into the flowing rivulets of the Force so well that it flows and adapts according to its tiniest shifts. Obi-Wan regards Qui-Gon sceptically, though, when he senses just an undercurrent of mischief under that folded masterpiece of calm, control and lack of emotion that is the typical Jedi Master.

Obi-Wan sincerely hopes that Master Jinn isn't like Master Even Piell. The temple would certainly fall should such a travesty occur. There simply wouldn't be enough space to contain that much snark.

"Focus, young one."

Obi-Wan snaps out of his observation with painful abruptness. A tilt of his head in apology, and Master Jinn resumes his question, apparently not caring that his large form is stuffed in a half crouch on a child-sized bunk.

Actually, Qui-Gon only has a vague idea of what he's doing, but is trusting his brain to deal with the rest. "Should you become a Knight, what would be your chosen area of expertise?"

With a start, he realises he has fallen unconsciously to the tone and speech pattern he uses in his diplomatic missions, cool and polite, but detached just enough to hide his true prowess at politics. He very nearly berates himself for it. This is a twelve-year-old child he is speaking to, for Force's sake.

Obi-Wan's clear grey-blue eyes narrow in contemplation. His fingers grip his stylus carefully, and a line of neat Basic letters dart into being on the textured surface of the sheet of hair-thin flimsy on his lap. Qui-Gon does not venture to find something else to occupy his gaze with as he watches Obi-Wan write; he has been in far too many seemingly awkward situations for the actual atmosphere to emerge. He simply waits, and makes his patience the gentle breaths of non-entity between one weaponless velocity movement and the next.

The sheet of flimsy is extended towards him, accompanied by a slight bow of the head.

Qui-Gon is somewhat surprised to feel the well-worn texture of the flimsy – it almost feels like parchment, the surface on which a few treasured ancient texts are written, hidden in the Archives. The boy must use this daily, Qui-Gon realises. Only after years of writing and washing clean and then writing again can the once-smooth acrylic surface be so pitted and scarred.

A single line, etched in ebony ink: The Jedi are the crystal of the Force.

Qui-Gon cannot help raising an eyebrow in amusement. There is an undercurrent of humour there – quoting lines from one of the core teachings of the Code right back a Jedi Master! And the answer itself is cryptic. Does he mean he intends to serve the Force as a blade does a Jedi, or that the future is unclear and he intends to focus on the present, as a 'saber crystal focuses the beam?

He glances up from his pondering to find a grin tugging at the corner of Kenobi's lips. Qui-Gon blinks at the sudden flash of regret; this boy would have done very well as his padawan, indeed. If that answer had been spoken aloud at, say, an Alderaanian opera house, there would be no doubt that whichever core-world upper-class sentinent the words were directed to would instantly be struck with uncomprehending awe.

But Qui-Gon is not a fat politician with a tendency to awe-struck gaping.

"I see your tongue needs some pruning," Qui-Gon chuckles. At the spike of heightened emotion in the Force, he winces, realising his mistake. He ploughs on, nevertheless; experience has taught him not to dwell on accidental insult in delicate conversations. "Have you ever considered the diplomatic corps?" he ventures, wary of Obi-Wan's reaction.

The flimsy passes from rough, calloused hands to yet-unblemished ones, and the stylus dances across the surface like a lightsaber's phosphorescent trails. But the acrylic sheet is pushed into Qui-Gon's hands this time, followed by a now almost imperceptible dip of the head.

Again, teachings paraphrased into a blunt line of unforgiving ink: A Jedi does not strive for an unobtainable victory.

The flimsiplast rustles as Qui-Gon's grip tightens on the weak material. It is astonishing how the two lines are written by the same hand, one below the other, with almost impeccable handwriting, and yet convey as much in tone and shape of words as speech. And they say nothing plainly of Obi-Wan's true opinion. The seemingly innocent words infer without stating; a negotiator's pre-emptive strikes, skilfully concealed as parries.

Although, Qui-Gon considers amusedly, he is probably blissfully unaware of this.

The flimsy is handed back to its owner; Qui-Gon does not miss how it is neatly, almost reverently folded. That particular piece of flimsy has been Obi-Wan's voice for years, then.

"Well met and well spoken, Initiate Kenobi," Qui-Gon says, formally, as he rises from the bunk.

Obi-Wan scrambles to his feet, apparently surprised at Qui-Gon's sudden desire to leave. He conceals his confusion with a deep bow, and a nod. Likewise, Master Jinn.

It is arguable who is brooding more than the other as the Qui-Gon takes his leave – the master, or the initiate.

(:~:)

It is night over this hemisphere of Coruscant, deepest sable mantling bleached white jewels in the silver durasteel hair of the planet-city below. The night cycle reaches its zenith, and rain falls, both sudden and long-expected. Sudden, for in one moment the air is choked with exhaust fumes and the thriving cocktail of scents that make up the diverse selection of species, and in the next, the frozen deluge of stored liquid cascades down spires and walkways, liquid diamond on solid crystal. Long-expected, for in the beating heart of the Galactic Republic, air and and weather systems are controlled, and this rainstorm scheduled a week in advance.

Water fills the first few hundred levels with mud and grime, washing secrets down, down, into Coruscant's heart of hearts, purging the clearer air above of exhaust and scent and acid and deathsticks. Inhabitants scurry for cover, late-night air traffic slows to an infant crawl. Rain falls on the shoulders of the stone sentinels guarding the grand entrance to the Jedi Temple, chilling their dark forms, and above, leaving the five spires of the Jedi Temple gleaming silver-white.

The Force trickles into a torrent along with the rain.

A solitary flicker of luminance blossoms into being in the mid-level residential wing.

It takes two cups of very strong Karlini tea to warm Qui-Gon's blood enough for him to sit back with a sigh and contemplate the event that jarred him from his slumber.

He had just experienced what could either be the smallest or the most significant vision of his life. Small, of course, meaning pathetically infinitesimal by other Jedi's standards – even the visions of those linked most strongly to the Living Force usually surpass two words.

Qui-Gon's first vision in ten years consists all of a single phrase: "Yes, Master." The voice was not his own. It had been musical, quiet, and somehow young – not in age or pitch, but a certain timbre. It conveys experience, but a voice seldom used; like the clear air of Ilum, so fresh that it has never been breathed by another sentient before.

Visions come to him so rarely that he has learnt that when they do, they are more likely than not pivotal in his life. Unfortunately, the words of this vision are repeated hundreds of times daily in the halls of the temple, from initiate to padawan to master.

Well, this is exceedingly helpful, Qui-Gon muses wryly, his usual wit degenerated into sarcasm by the late hour. He brushes aside the notion that he has just in affect cursed the Force. Still…Master Yoda would not take lightly to an intrusion at this hour of night – in fact, Qui-Gon highly doubts that anything less than a full-scale invasion of the Temple could rouse him. And thatcould surely never occur, not in a hundred lifetimes.

His comlink gives an irritating beep as it barges into his thoughts with all the restraint of an unwired astromech. Some pitful padawan manning the night-shift communication desks has sent him council summons for the morning.

Sithspit.

With a sigh, Qui-Gon contemplates returning to his sleep pallet, but decides against it. He really shouldn't have chosen Karlini tea; it was brewed in an effort to wake himself up enough to analyse his vision, but the stimulant has also served a dual, if unwelcome service of rendering him unable to settle his thoughts.

In an effort to occupy his troubled mind, he pulls out the holo-book of Obi-Wan's homework assignments that Master Ali Alann gave him a few hours previous. Choosing a random subject, he flicks open the document and idly begins to read.

Obi-Wan's writing is earnest, if not bluntly so: 'Negotiation is arguably the most important of skills a Jedi can possess. It can lead to conflict, and yet equally could end war. Aggressive action must only be taken when there is no other course to follow, or there is a danger of overconfidence. Many masters favour this view, the forefront of whom is Master Vodo-Siosk Baas, who distinguished himself before and during the Old Sith Wars. However, there are some instances in which this argument at first does not seem to be correct, an example of which is the pirate blockade of the Mandalorian Road in the Hydian hyperspace route a decade and a half ago.'

Qui-Gon chokes on a mouthful of tea. Of all the case studies… Releasing the resulting small amount of irritation into the Force takes more effort than it should, due to the following lines.

'The unnamed Jedi Master sent to negotiate peace between the government of New Mandalore and the offending party was explicitly ordered only to oversee the drawing up of terms and demands. New Mandalore specifically requested minimal military intervention in accordance to their pacifist beliefs. This Jedi Master instead chose to lead a small contingent of off-worlders in a raid of the main pirate spacecraft, holding the captain hostage until their representatives agreed to soften the terms of the treaty. The off-worlders were later given rewards by the Mandalorian government.

'While this particular course of action prevented the possible crippling of Mandalorian economy, it also carried the immense risk of loss of life on a grand scale, and the violation of key political beliefs of the inhabitants of New Mandalore. There is a very real possibility this could have led to conflict with other political groups. The Jedi Master may have achieved victory, but victory through negotiation would not have caused the risks that aggression did. I can only conclude that this master's method of 'aggressive negotiation' is a rather fortunate victory among many other instances that would have ended in failure.'

Qui-Gon reaches the end of the paragraph and is for a moment struck speechless. That particular mission had been his first as a Jedi Master, and the council had informed him that they would place a report of it in the Archives as a record of disobedience. In all, he had thought he had done rather well. Mandalore had been minimally affected by the crisis and he had only acted out of compassion. Mace had even joked afterwards that it fit in with his love for pathetic life forms perfectly. With this, Obi-Wan had taken his actions and all but dissected them with a voice of calm reason.

A chuckle escapes Qui-Gon. Rascal.

He reaches into the Force, only to find it clouded and unforgiving, like the slick, tepid pools of water that are all that remain of the Coruscanti rain.

Of course, this does not necessarily mean that Qui-Gon will be reverse his opinion about taking a padawan any time soon.

(:~:)

His opinion is vigorously encouraged to adapt in his session with the council the next morning.

"Taken an interest in an initiate, we hear." Yoda's sly tone should be illegal for this early in the morning.

"Yes, master." Qui-Gon readily admits, exuding easy calm.

Mace Windu's features take on an expression of surprise for the merest moment. "You wish to take this initiate as your padawan, then?"

Amusement leaks into the Force. "You misunderstand, masters. I was simply intrigued by his ability to deal with his indisposition to speech."

Yoda's green-striped eyes narrow perceptively. "Misunderstand, we do not."

"With all due respect, Master Yoda–"

"Hmmph, yes! Respect, we are due!" Yoda growls, in that concoction of amusement and firmness that only he can achieve.

Qui-Gon defers with a bow of the head.

"Master Jinn," Plo Koon breaks in, his head tresses swinging as he leans forward. "The previous time you came before us, the council strongly advised you to take a padawan. Naturally, the choice is yours, as the Force wills. However, you must decide, and soon. It ill becomes a Jedi Master to wallow in indecision."

Qui-Gon allows the barb to slide past him, and replies genially. "Of course. As I said so before," – a sly counterstrike – "I have made my decision. I will not take another padawan."

"Reasons, have you, for this choice?" Yoda has retreated into an inscrutable gaze.

Measured, calm. "I have observed initiates of the appropriate age, as you suggested. And I have found none that have the aptitude for the rigors of peacemaking and negotiation."

Yoda's voice whips into reprimand. "Then lie to yourself, you do. Not intelligent enough, is young Kenobi?"

Qui-Gon does not hide his thunderous frown this time. "The ability to speak does not make one intelligent. Several species are testament to that."

A throaty chuckle. Success laces each of Yoda's next words. "Then admit Obi-Wan is ready to be a padawan, you do."

"Yes," Qui-Gon snaps. He catches himself. "But not ready to be my padawan."

Mace Windu latches on smoothly, sharp as a Vaapad blow. "Then we have proof here that the problem lies not with the initiates, but you."

Anger threatens to overwhelm Qui-Gon's mental shields. He stares mutely at his friend, cerulean eyes clashing against dark brown like a storm swell against a cliff face. For a moment, the wave teeters on its crest, but the cliff is too steep and resentment insufficient fuel for the storm. Emotion crashes into the Force like waves on the shore, then are contained and held back by solid dams of pure will.

"What does the council recommend?" Qui-Gon grinds out grudgingly, breaking the Korun master's gaze and turning to Yoda. Mace releases a long breath, and the entire council palpably relaxes.

Yoda sighs. "Mission we have for you."

Surprise spills into the Force like coloured ink. "Yes?"

"Deemed ready to construct their first lightsaber, a group of younglings are. Young padawans and old initiates. Young all the same. Take them to Ilum, you will, and supervise their collection of crystals."

Babysitting. So this was all the council could come up with as punishment. "Thank you, masters," Qui-Gon murmurs, bowing deeply. It is worth the appearance of submission to escape the tedium of further conversation. "I will do as you command."

"See that you do," Mace Windu counters. Qui-Gon should have known Mace would not allow him the last word.

A nod, another sweeping bow, and then Qui-Gon is in the hallway beyond, feeling the council's gazes bore into his retreating back.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon, rather predictably, is brooding up a storm when the door-chime announces the presence of Master Tahl Uvain. He waves the door open with a forced smile, and she stalks in brusquely, hands occupied with a large containter of steaming herbed nerf stew.

"Tahl, how was your–"

"You're brooding again." The Pot – as they call the tub in which they bring food for their weekly dinners at each other's apartments – is slammed unceremoniously onto the table.

Qui-Gon surreptitiously slides a piece of cork under the metal container. The table is made of Felucian wood, a gift from an acquaintance many years ago, and the polished surface marks very, very easily. "Yes," he ventures cautiously.

Green and gold striped eyes glare at him. "Don't tell me you're indulging your masochistic side again."

"There is no emotion, there is peace."

Tahl snorts. "Don't quote the code at me. Everyone knows we only use it to evade a question. It's a testament to parrot-learning."

Qui-Gon retorts just as shortly, amusement barely veiling his words. "Ah, but in negotiation, it is often used to–" He trails off, blinking as a profound revelation strikes him.

A furrow appears between Tahl's eyebrows. "Qui?"

Light chuckles, and a shake of the head. "That manipulative little brat."

"Excuse me?" Tahl's voice has now taken on the dangerous tone of a Consular seeking answers, and not getting them when she should.

Qui-Gon cannot help but smile as he turns back to her. "I met a rather interesting initiate yesterday evening. He acted as if he did not know me, and only answered my questions with strict lines of the Code. I thought he was being self-depreciatory, but he must have wanted to gauge my reaction to find the reasons for my sudden interest in him." It all makes sense – the deference, the airs of respect, when all along, Obi-Wan must have known that the 'unnamed Jedi Master' of his referenced case study was Qui-Gon. He barks a laugh. "He tried to outwit me,and it backfired spectacularly. It's as I thought - he still has much to learn."

Tahl stares at him for a moment, then swats him on the arm amiably. "I'll expect you to introduce me to your padawan properly when you take him."

"I never said–"

"You might as well have. Let's eat."

The day had been a strange series of rare losses. Qui-Gon brushes these and their loaded emotions aside, releases their fading echoes into the Force, and settles to a dinner with one of his oldest and dearest friends, finding solace in good food and pleasant company. Tahl makes sure to leave him with two parting gifts: the washing-up and a reminder to cook something worthwhile for their next meeting, scheduled for the following week in Tahl's quarters.

Qui-Gon sets to cleaning The Pot with meditative silence.

(:~:)

The ordered chaos in the southern hangar of the Jedi Temple tends more heavily towards chaos this particular morning. Qui-Gon glances at the orderly line of two initiates and three padawans, and hefts a holo-record in his hands with a sigh. "I am Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn. I know those of you who are padawans wish that your masters could be here, but the council has assigned them individual missions, so I will be supervising you." he says quietly. The Force is disturbed in a side-corridor hidden from their sight around a corner, and Qui-Gon brushes the feeling of foreboding aside with difficulty.

"Step forward and state your name and age."

A lanky Dressalian boy moves toward Qui-Gon with the gangly un-grace of growing limbs. He bows. "Initiate Reeft Shinren. Twelve."

The next in line is a Kiffar male. He is not old, but Qui-Gon could not call him a child. "Initiate-Padawan Quinlan Vos," he says shortly. He doesn't offer anything further.

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow, but moves on. Master Tholme had filled him in Quinlan's unique situation.

A voice breaks in, practically roiling with excitment. "Padawan Garen Muln. Thirteen." The stubby brown braid on one side of his face reveals that that rank has only very recently been earned. Garen smirks as Quinlan gives him a murderous look from beside him.

Qui-Gon finds himself already imagining what horrors the pair could bring to this mission.

"Padawan Luminara Unduli. Thirteen." The Mirialan's calm voice is a welcome break from the previous three. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Master Jinn." New tattoos stretch on her chin as she smiles graciously at him.

"Padawan Huei Tori." The male nautolan's smile is ridiculously reserved when compared to Knight Kit Fisto's. "Twelve."

Qui-Gon strikes each name off the list wearily, but pauses when one a quick scroll-down reveals one more. There, in the blank, inkless block-script of Republic Standard Basic, is the last name. Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Qui-Gon sucks in a breath. Mace, you wily gundark.

"Have any of you seen Initiate Kenobi this morning?" he asks, not without a trace of concern. From what he read of Obi-Wan last evening, the initiate is not one to be tardy.

Garen and Reeft glance at each other, hidden worry and uneasy understanding flitting across their faces.

Pattering footsteps race across durasteel, and Obi-Wan Kenobi comes to an undignified halt at the end of the line, his duffel of cold-weather gear in disarray. Qui-Gon opens his mouth to reprimand the boy, only to notice a purpling bruise on Obi-Wan's temple, barely hidden by tufts of hair smoothed messily over the blemish.

Obi-Wan sinks into a deep bow, cheeks flushing scarlet from exertion and embarrassment. He notices at least two of the group are looking at him expectantly, and embarrassment turns into shame.

Qui-Gon breaks in smoothly. "We're all present and accounted for, then. Board and store your bags, and assist in pre-flight checks. I will join you shortly."

The line of younglings file up the boarding ramp, Obi-Wan following dejectedly. As he brushes past Qui-Gon, a sudden flare of consciousness seems to connect the two of them, like a lamp-catch flung open, luminance cascading into the air.

And as quickly as the influx of light shines, it is gone. Obi-Wan continues up the ramp, apparently unaffected, and Qui-Gon just manages to stop himself from calling out afer him.

Qui-Gon turns toward the side hallway where he had felt the disturbance. The harsh lighting reveals the length of the corridor to be empty, save for a thick sock here, a headlamp there, cold weather gear flung to the floor. Conflict and jealousy hangs in the air like a forgotten echo of a few minutes past.

He collects Obi-Wan's fallen possessions and turns back towards the ship. This has given him much to meditate upon during the journey to Ilum.

Chapter Text

Hyperspace is strange. There is a semblance of motion, for streaks of light dart and meander in whorls and nettles of discolour past the ship's viewing windows. But there is no change in pressure or gravity, save for the steady thrum of the hyperdrive through metal and durasteel. Surely the ship must be travelling forward; if not in space, then in the translucent state of non-being in between dimensions, the craft speck of dust fallen between the branches of the multiverse. Or perhaps they are the ones remaining still, while space itself roils around their bubble of calm, shifting and warping until their destination, still light-years away, finally settles beneath their unsteady feet, and they will have travelled from their starting position and yet not.

That, it very well may be; for here, the Force is still. The music of the spheres is not gone, exactly – but it is as if the conductor has raised his baton and frozen there, and the whole song coalesced into one high, crystalline note, hung upon a fragile thread of time and space. The Force is here. It always has, and always will be. But there is no Unifying or Living, Light or Dark; it is the Force. And that is all.

For once, Obi-Wan is glad he does not have a voice, for if he did, he is unsure whether or he would laugh or scream. Both would break him out of his meditation in an extremely uncivilised manner.

As it is, the tall Jedi Master kneeling beside him eases out of his own meditation and affixes him with an inquisitive gaze. Obi-Wan cannot see Master Jinn's scrutiny through his closed eyelids, but he feels it nonetheless, an oxymoron of ice and fire as it washes over him like a cool hand on his forehead, gauging his temperature, bringing a question to the stinging bruise on his temple…

Obi-Wan shakes his head, eyes remaining closed. He senses rather than hears the soft rustle of fabric as the older Jedi brushes gentle fingers by the bruise and pours warmth from the Force into it, dulling the sharp pain into an ache. And then a hiss of compressed air as the door slides open, and retreating footsteps into the corridor.

Only then does Obi-Wan open his eyes to the grey world of the sleeping quarters, and realise that throughout that entire exchange, Qui-Gon had not said a word. The question itself had been asked, and answered, with the air still and the Force untapped – and the question is the key. Was it really as simple a query as 'Does this wound pain you?' Or was Qui-Gon asking another question all together?

Master Jinn is hard to read. He appears to waver between concern and distance, seeming to pull himself back when he realises the care in his actions.

The meditation cushion beneath him does nothing to quell the ache in his knees. With a start, Obi-Wan glances at the chrono. They had been meditating together for no less than three hours. Had he really been lost in the Force for so long? The other cushions arranged neatly in a circle are long since empty, the other initiates and padawans gone to shipboard duties. Obi-Wan unfolds himself and stretches his aching legs, forcing himself to flip a few times as his spine declares its protest, and goes in quest of breakfast.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon is well aware of the curious glances the younger generation throw his way as he settles his tray of food down in the ship's tiny galley. Garen Muln is the only one absent, being the youngling most unlikely to crash the ship on autopilot, and so delegated temporary cockpit duty. Luminara Unduli eats slowly, her olive nose wrinkled slightly in distaste at Reeft Shinren, who is shovelling food into his mouth while simultaneously stealing bits of tuber from Quinlan Vos's plate. Quinlan's eyebrows are beetled into a frown, but of annoyance rather than anger. Huei Tori sits ramrod-straight, nodding respectfully to Qui-Gon as he enters. Qui-Gon represses a momentary flash of annoyance. Everything about this Nautolan padawan is perfect, from the incline of his head to the manner in which he eats. This is no maverick, negotiator, or archivist. This is the perfect reserved calm of the Jedi Padawan, one that many a master would gladly teach.

No. Not perfect. What could be taught to a perfect padawan?

Qui-Gon cuts off the thought, instead pitching his voice louder to reach all the younglings clustered around the table. "All of you did well in meditation this morning," he says. "But Initiate Kenobi immersed himself in the Force far more deeply than any of you. You would do well to learn from his example."

"Yes, Master Jinn," they chorus.

He suppresses a wince. Intrigue is still there, in the high, yet unbroken timbre of their voices. Even children have noticed his supposed partiality to Obi-Wan.

As he sets to his unappetizing breakfast of rations, Qui-Gon muses over whether he should have said the word with Obi-Wan present. Praise does not fall lightly from his lips, but he cannot help but wonder whether Obi-Wan has many chances to hear heartfelt praise at all.

By and by, Reeft takes his leave, offering a bow at Qui-Gon and muttering something about final checks on his 'saber design. Huei rises silently from his obsessively clean plates and bows low, murmuring some nicety or the other, before pivoting tournament-style and moving off. His dark blue head-tresses sway gently after him, bound by a single stripe of unforgiving brown leather. Unreadable. Blank.

He would make an excellent Sentinel, that one. Qui-Gon can almost hear his former Master's voice chuckling darkly. Dooku is yet another reason Qui-Gon cannot bear to take another apprentice.

Obi-Wan's entrance is so silent that it is only a whisper of the Force against Qui-Gon's shields that causes him to glance up. Obi-Wan grins hesitantly at him, and brings a hand up to the faded mark on his temple before bowing deeply. To the remaining three others in the room, there is nothing out of the ordinary in the motion, but Qui-Gon finds himself smiling back. "Your gratitude is appreciated," Qui-Gon returns.

Obi-Wan's ears are slightly pink as he fills a tray for himself and settles in the wide expanse of bench between Quinlan and Luminara. Quinlan flicks a few fingers in his direction, and offers no more recognition. Luminara greets him quietly, and he nods back quickly, turning to his food in an effort not to incite further interest.

Qui-Gon frowns as he picks through his uninteresting food mash. Obi-Wan's practice of making himself unnoticeable must be an instinctive method of self-preservation. By focusing on other trivial matters, Obi-Wan finds excuse for his silence, and fades into the background. All good qualities for an infiltration mission, but not if it is a permanent habit. Qui-Gon decides to speak to him later.

Unfortunately, Padawan Luminara beats him to it.

"Obi-Wan, right? I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you yesterday." Luminara's voice is gentle, unassuming – perhaps precisely because she does not have a vital piece of knowledge that is key to this conversation. "There's no need to be so withdrawn. We're all Jedi here."

Obi-Wan sets down his muja juice with a hollow thud and nods in acknowledgement. A few feet away, Quinlan slowly lowers his glass, too. Conflicting emotions are spreading across his features. He is no doubt trying to balance his desire to remain uninvolved with the need to warn Luminara.

Luminara's features spread into a wide grin. "You're quiet, aren't you? My master told me to try to meet more Jedi on this mission, because I could work with all of you in future missions. Aren't you glad we'll be constructing our lighsabers soon? " When Obi-Wan does not answer beyond another nod and a small smile, the enthusiasm begins to slip off her face. "Well…what lightsaber designs are you considering using?"

With a slightly relieved expression, Obi-Wan reaches into his tunic and withdraws a battered holopad, fingers skimming expertly over the surface. The next moment, a hologram shimmers to life, the blued lines flickering every now and then, but the image so detailed and intricate that Luminara lets out a gasp of wonder. "This is beautiful!" she exclaims. "It's traditional, but different in little ways – what inspired these etched lines here?"

Obi-Wan opens his mouth, then closes it. Luminara's brow furrows with confusion as his hand reaches within his tunic once again and emerges with his square sheet of worn flimsy.

Qui-Gon's hand twitches on his fork, but something keeps him rooted in his seat, a desire to see the situation played out. He does not see the line Obi-Wan writes, but Luminara's answer is spoken clearly enough for Qui-Gon to wince inwardly. "Oh, of course, that makes sense. Lightsaber design has varied over the years. But why didn't you just say it out loud? I'm not much to be afraid of, am I?"

The hand with which Obi-Wan grips the stylus trembles slightly. Qui-Gon begins to stand; he cannot, will not allow the boy to write what he so obviously considers to be shameful. He will not let Obi-Wan demean himself so, to draw those self-damning words across the flimsy in that beautiful, calm script that hides so much of what he really feels.

But he is beaten to it a second time. By Quinlan Vos.

"Enough!" The Kiffar stands up sharply, upsetting his glass. Muja juice pours unhindered over the perfect mirror of the steel table, vicious purple liquid spreading like a bruise. "Can't you tell?" he hisses at a wide-eyed Luminara. "You come on this mission, all perfect and polite, and speak of 'getting to know fellow Jedi better', putting on fancy language and airs, when you can't even tell that Obi-Wan is mute?"

The word crashes down on the four of them like the entire weight of the Force, crushing them, leaving Luminara speechless with horror, Obi-Wan's knuckles white where he clutches his stylus, and Qui-Gon cursing his lack of speed. There is nothing he can do now; the silence is deafening, thick and corrosive like the acidic mud of Dragobah, trapping them all in a quagmire, soiling clothes and faces, changing, hurting.

Qui-Gon washes it away with a tidal wave of stern reprimand. "That," he says heavily, "is enough." Two paces forward, and a hand drops to the shaking shoulder of Luminara Unduli. "Padawan Unduli. Go meditate, center, and then review your assignments. You can do no more here."

Luminara bobs a bow to him, crouches in an almost-kowtow to Obi-Wan, and darts out of the room, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.

"Vos," Qui-Gon growls, "Come with me." He does not glance at Obi-Wan as he stalks out, steering Quinlan before him. He does not think he can stomach the expression that must be on the boy's face right now.

Quinlan grunts as Qui-Gon forces him onto his knees, none too gently, onto a meditation cushion.

"I shouldn't have anything to say here," Qui-Gon begins. He knows his eyes must be twin daggers of blue ice, and he makes no effort to soften his gaze. "Speak for yourself."

"She didn't even realise what she was doing!" Quinlan exclaims, crossing his arms and half-rising out of his kneeling position. "I'm no friend of Obi-Wan, but she was presenting a fine example of her Force-forsaken propriety and poise."

Qui-Gon attempts to lower his voice. "And you were?"

A sarcastic snort. "I'm better. I don't even pretend to go for anything like eloquence."

A short silence, only broken by Quinlan's heavy breathing after such an outburst. Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow, and the Kiffar padawan raises his eyes to meet Qui-Gon's gaze.

Quinlan flinches.

He folds himself down, bowing so his head touches the floor. "I'm sorry, my master. I shouldn't have spoken out like that. Forgive me."

"I will have to have a word with Master Tholme when we return," Qui-Gon says curtly. "You would do well to reflect upon your actions. They were well-intentioned, but did more harm than good."

It is a testament to Master Tholme's years of service when Quinlan mutters grudgingly, "Yes, Master Jinn."

Qui-Gon spares him a piercing stare before turning and sweeping back towards the galley. His pace increases perceptibly, and his cloak billows behind him like a swelling storm front as he paces down the unforgiving durasteel. He pauses at the door, testing the Force.

There is nothing. No sorrow, shame, nor fear. The Force shimmers with the void.

Steeling himself, Qui-Gon turns the corner.

Obi-Wan faces the opposite wall, a vacuum in the Force, grey mental shields slippery and strong. The only action that belies his emotion is his stylus flying across the flimsy before him.

Little one. The thought pops into his mind before he can stop himself – and star's end, he has no idea why. Perhaps because it seems to suit the tiny form of the boy, sat curled with his knees to his chest as he pours out his heart into ink. "Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon says quietly. A sudden thought strikes him that this is the first time he as said Obi-Wan's first name out loud, and with it, comes a strange sensation in his mind. An awareness of some sort.

Instead of moving towards that head of spiky golden-brown hair, Qui-Gon withdraws a small, fragrant packet from within his robes and strides towards the narrow counter. A sudden pause in the stylus's scratching accompanies his movement, but he pretends not to notice as he sets water to boil. Two chipped shipboard mugs will have to suffice for porcelain, but it does not matter; the water is boiled and folded leaves crushed into the steaming waterfalls, curls of opalescent fragrant steam curling off the green surface.

Moving slowly, so as not to startle Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon slides onto the bench, pushing one mug of tea towards him. Obi-Wan does not raise his head, but finishes his last stylus-stroke with a flourish that might have been a violent stab seen under different circumstances. The flimsy crinkles as it slides across the polished surface of the table to come to a rest beneath Qui-Gon's hands.

"Drink," Qui-Gon says, turning the flimsy over without looking at it. "It's Sapir tea. When you have calmed yourself, we will look at what you have wrought together."

Obi-Wan raises his head, eyes red-rimmed. Small hands reach across the table and seek the baking warmth of the mug. He raises it to his lips and swallows, and a small, soundless gasp escapes him as the heat worms its way down his throat and into his stomach, warming his chest with a gentle luminance. A gulp, larger this time, and tears of pain comes to his eyes at the scalding mouthful.

"Not quite like that," Qui-Gon says humouredly. "You'll burn yourself. Try inhaling before you sip."

Obi-Wan does as he is told and finds the scented steam sweet and lingering, like a wildflower seed pressed and dried, only to be watered again, its scent spreading like the petals of the blossom. Unbidden, a smile comes to his lips, and his racing heart calms. A slow, indulgent sip, and sweetness floods his tongue, with a pleasant note of bitterness afterwards. Light flickers, and the Force trickles into him like a stream into a desert.

"Better," Qui-Gon murmurs as he turns to his own tea.

Obi-Wan's Force presence grows steadily brighter, and Qui-Gon pauses as he senses an echo of music thrum between them like sound dancing along a wire. It is strangely familiar and comforting – but just as it did on the boarding ramp back on Coruscant, the feeling snaps and withers away abruptly.

Filing this event away for later analysis, Qui-Gon turns over the flimsy. And reins in his reaction with difficulty.

Etched exquisitely in sable ink is a intricately designed lightsaber hilt, its two-handed grip of obsidian and shining silver, the pommel a half-sphere, like a dark half-moon at the end of a silver-lined pathway. There is no fanciful flair, no crossguards or curved metal. It is a weapon, deadly in its purpose. And yet it will be beautiful, for its wielder will dance with it until the crystal, the blade, and the Jedi are one pulsing heart.

Qui-Gon turns from the drawing to find Obi-Wan staring at him questioningly. A small snort escapes the older Jedi. "You like using flimsy more than a holo-pad, don't you?" he comments.

Obi-Wan nods. He taps his stylus, the lightsaber drawing, and then his chest, shrugging embarrassedly as he does so, but Qui-Gon understands anyway. Writing by hand is like using a 'saber – The crystal is the heart of the blade, the heart is the crystal of the Jedi – it is a truer form of expression then the blank words of a holo-pad.

On a whim, Qui-Gon unclips his lightsaber from his belt and holds it out towards the Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan's eyes grow impossibly wide, and he shakes his head vigorously, raising his hands in consternation. But Qui-Gon is not to be denied. The heavy hilt of the 'saber passes from strong, callused hands to small, ink-stained ones. Obi-Wan holds it almost reverently.

"I took my design from much the same influence as yours: the battlemasters of old," Qui-Gon begins, pitching his voice into the distinctive lilt of teaching. "Activator. Controllers. Radiator grooves." His finger touches each component respectively, with ease that proves his intimate knowledge of the weapon. It has been with him for decades, and seen as much battle as he has. He knows its weight, its feel, and the song it plays when it is activated, better than he knows himself. "I worked these ridges into the grip for decoration and practicality. They also serve the purpose of protecting the crystal." He notices with no little amusement that Obi-Wan is hanging onto his very word. "You see this metal overlay?" Qui-Gon murmurs. Obi-Wan nods emphatically, eyes shining. Qui-Gon tries not to smile as he continues. "I was inspired by the code. The lightsaber should flow like the Force – I imagined the metal pooling around the 'saber, cocooning it with the Force."

Obi-Wan's expression has long since changed from reverent to awestruck. Qui-Gon receives his lightsaber back with a twinkle in his own gaze. Obi-Wan had handled the weapon as if it were made of glass. "Could you tell me about your own designs?"

Obi-Wan beams a smile as his stylus once more flashes forth, arrows and writing darting about the page, waxing eloquent about his future 'saber. Qui-Gon misses the first few lines entirely, as transfixed as he is with Obi-Wan's grin. He has not seen joy this pure and undiluted for a long time. Feemor had once smiled like this; but knighthood had taken him from Qui-Gon's side. Xanatos… he had been blind to it, but there was always a slick secrecy in his smirks, pride and darkness hiding behind a carefree expression. But when Obi-Wan smiles, it is as if he takes all the laughter he knows he cannot produce, focuses it, and flashes pure light from his features.

If a lightsaber could be made of joy, Obi-Wan's smile would come very close to being like one.

As the morning wears on, Qui-Gon feels a familiar feeling settle into his heart, but it is a sensation so long unfelt that he needs a moment to recognise it: the satisfaction of a lesson well taught. Nostalgia washes against his shields, tugs at his control. But by the time he excuses himself to check on the cockpit, Qui-Gon does not begrudge himself a grin.

(:~:)

It is only when the shipboard computer announces their imminent drop out of hyperspace above Ilum does Qui-Gon catch himself. What is he doing? He had sworn to himself since that broken day on Telos IV that he would never take another Padawan. The success of seeing Feemor through to knighthood was wholly eclipsed by his failure in seeing the Dark infect Xanatos, whom he raised from childhood. The satire does not escape him; why should his padawan of two years succeed, while his padawan of six years fall? Qui-Gon sighs as he dismisses Garen Muln from the cockpit. He has never been a good Master, never worthy of his rank and title. That farce in the galley today was a result of his lack of intervention as much as Padawan Unduli's insensitivity.

The ship drops out of hyperspace with a soundless lurch, mirroring the sudden echoing emptiness of his stomach. Stars stream and coalesce into twinkling diamonds, rivers of nebulae and comet-streaks. And with it, the Living Force flows anew, flowing through his tired mind, soothing, calm. Qui-Gon searches this current for an answer, any answer, to a question that he cannot define fully.

The ice-blue world of Ilum hovers ahead, a beacon in the Force, calling all Force-sensitives, Jedi or not, to the treasures it holds in its vaults. Qui-Gon reaches forward, flicks an activation switch, and prepares to bring down the ship. The Force has given him no clear answer – but the lulling melody of the crystals below the ice draws him in. Either way, Ilum is his immediate future, and he must face it, as the Living Force compels him to at present.

He only hopes Obi-Wan can face it as well.

Chapter Text

The Jedi enclave on Ilum stands breathtakingly tall, a hollow sentinel of sapphire ice, unforgiving but elegant in its sharp angles and turreted majesty. Yet there is something deadly about the manner in which the white mid-morning light scatters awry over its white-azure walls. Light does not cling to this temple within its shining borders; rather, it seems to hesitate for the briefest moments at the muffled sable of casements and doors, a few solitary, braver motes venturing to search the yawning mouth of the main entryway, only to be swallowed whole by the insatiable darkness. Silence reigns. Not the hushed quiet of snow, but an awed, fearful lack of sound. The enclave is beautiful, yes. But only because light rebounds off its surface and flees, not daring to search its fettered depths.

In more ways than one, Ilum is rather cold.

Obi-Wan gives himself a mental cuff on the ear for thinking the absolutely obvious. With such an unspecified word, no less! The frigid temperature could might as well have frozen his nerve-endings, rendering his usually over-active brain into a pile of soggy mush. Muffled curses drift back at him from where Quinlan slogs through waist-high snow, followed doggedly by the hunched forms of Reeft, Garen, Luminara and Huei. The five of them, and Obi-Wan himself, are so wrapped up in winter gear that to the casual observer, they would not be specimens of five separate species but rather a forlorn line of baby gorgodons. For all their years of Jedi training, they present a very sorry sight.

Of course, Qui-Gon is exclusively exempted from this indignity.

The Jedi Master circles the six younglings like a watchful hawk-bat, the green glow of his lightsaber luminous in the heavy flurries of snowfall. There is no thick coat around him, or spiked boots on his feet, but his supple nerf-hide boots move with quick, sure steps over the thick layer of white, soundless. His shameless, liberal and very skilled application of the Force saves him from having to wade through white sludge like the younger ones. His boots do not even mark the snow.

Qui-Gon completes the last of his circles, crouching and placing a hand on Quinlan's shoulder to steady him. The line of Initiates and Padawans stumble to a clumsy halt. "We're almost at the entrance!" Qui-Gon calls back at the shivering figures, voice somehow still clear over the rising wind. A note of warning creeps into his voice. "Stay behind me!"

As the ominous sable of the main entryway blots out the sky, Obi-Wan grits his teeth and shuffles after the others. He doesn't quite think it's fair that Qui-Gon could warm himself with the Force and Obi-Wan has not yet learned to do so. And half-dancing across the snow like that! Master Alann would have given Obi-Wan a sound ticking off for exuberance if he had done anything remotely similar.

But a chilling howl rises out of the bleached ridges behind him, and Obi-Wan's overactive imagination manifests the sound into an Asharl Panther pack. It is this terrifying image, rather than an actual pack itself, that hurries his steps after the others.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon examines the clinging shadows of the entrance gallery as he shakes the heavy snow off his cloak. The flickering yellow lamps in the walls must be ancient, for the light does not so much illuminate the shadows as enlarge them, pooling them in tepid sable puddles about their feet, dripping down corners. The intricately carved ice ceiling echoes and groans overhead like an abandoned cathedral. In the entryway behind, icy stalagtites shiver in the wind, and rivulets of of agitation pour from the six Force signatures behind him. Qui-Gon sighs. Children.

"I think my rear's frostbitten," Quinlan groans as he rubs his hide-covered buttocks, ignoring the filthy look Luminara shoots him over her shoulder.

"Why is the landing pad so far from here?" Reeft mutters the complaint as he tries to stamp feeling back into his frozen feet.

"It would be unfortunate if you had to find out," Qui-Gon answers promptly, eyes still flicking from alcove to doorway. Obi-Wan's fingers fall still on the straps of his pack as he notices Qui-Gon has not deactivated his lightsaber. His own hand twitches toward his training 'saber, and he sinks into a casual stance, gaze wandering away from his teammates to the endless caverns ahead.

Qui-Gon makes sure to hide the approval in the set of his shoulders as he continues his examination of the silent hall. Obi-Wan is the only one of the younglings who is aware of the danger lurking in the darker currents of the Force; the others are busy divesting themselves of packs and gloves.

Suddenly, Qui-Gon folds his large frame onto the floor, pressing an ear into the harsh stone. He straightens equally as abruptly, fiddling with the power setting on his lightsaber. The humming song of the emerald blade pitches higher as the blade blazes with new heat. "Initiate Shinren," he calls cheerfully to Reeft, "It seems the answer to your question is approaching with a remarkable speed from a three o'clock direction." Despite the amusement in his tone, his eyes have narrowed. The thick brown folds of his cloak fall into a heap by his feet.

Obi-Wan rips off his cumbersome gloves and his heavy coat as well, eyes wide. His numb fingers grip the hilt of his training 'saber tightly, uncaring that the icy metal bites into his knuckles. All talk and action ceases as every head turns to their right. In the resulting silence, the wind howls anew, throwing its cackling laughter against the walls, rooting the feet of initiate and padawan alike in place.

And ever so softly, down a side corridor, the muffled grunts, thudding pawfalls, and slavering breath of some unknown horror grows steadily louder.

"Ah," Qui-Gon comments, almost to himself. He paces forward unhurriedly, halting right in front of Garen, who is frozen, half in the act of pulling off his coat. "Training 'sabers out," Qui-Gon murmurs quietly. There is no urgency in his voice. No emotion. Only peace.

The hiss-snap of five other blades bathe their angular faces with garish colours of yellow and blue, emitting a high, discordant buzzing. Throughout it all, Qui-Gon's 'saber glows a steady green, a deeper, richer melody.

"Stay behind me," Obi-Wan hears Qui-Gon murmur under his breath. The Jedi Master's voice is calm, collected, but there is a hardness to it Obi-Wan has not heard before. Not quite uncivilised, Obi-Wan muses, adrenaline slowing time into a crawl as he settles into the basic Shii-Cho stance. Just…battle-ready.

And then the monstrosity is upon them with no need for civility.

The full-grown gorgodon barrels into Qui-Gon's salute with fearsome speed, claws screeching agonising furrows into the stone floor, a thousand pounds of solid muscle and fur against a whiplash blade of plasma. Screams explode behind Qui-Gon as the others dive out of their way, watching the maelstrom of slashes and parries as claw meets 'saber in a spray of molten chitin. The gorgodon's roar of incensed pain forms a terrible clamourous duet with the whirring sphere of Qui-Gon's 'saber. Daggered fangs grind against each other as hot blood hisses against the frozen floor; then a howl of fury, and Qui-Gon finds himself darting into Ataru acrobatics to avoid the balls of sticky brown saliva hurting towards him in a binding rain.

Ataru is relentless, and this predator but another many-'sabered opponent; this is the battle of hawk-bat against gorgordon, agility against power, flight against stone. The hawk-bat does not fight alone – its young flutters about the gorgodon, their own claws less luminous, less sharp, but quick nonetheless. The gorgodon snarls as it bats at these nuisances, these ungrown young cubs to him. Some are more hawk-bat than others; one of the young, with a darker pelt than the rest, battles with fervor, his bright yellow claw flashing with his war-cries. Another – a female, the gorgodon senses – defends her brothers more than she attacks. Three other hatchlings seem to shift, the one who smells of fish striking like a predator rather than prey, and the other two alternating, protectors and warriors.

And the last one, the runt of the litter, perhaps, for his voice-box does not seem developed enough to yowl – he stays closest to the adult hawk-bat's side, an infant seeking to protect his sire, possibly. But a runt is a runt. And to a hunter such as the gorgodon, the weak are but food.

Obi-Wan utters a soundless cry as the gorgodon's thick tail slams into his chest, knocking the breath out of him and crunching into his ribs. Pain blossoms like a red flower under his skin, followed by the disorientating impact of the back of his head slamming into the stone floor. His 'saber rolls loose from his bruised hands.

The gorgodon reaches for him, but is hindered by a hot 'saber in his side.

Qui-Gon hisses a Huttese expletive as he realises he cannot keep track of all his charges in a melee such as this. He can identify four separate voices in the battle, but Obi-Wan is a fleeting shadow in his peripheral vision at the best of times. Qui-Gon's single focus is on the hulking predator he faces. In the three times he has been to Ilum, he has never faced a gorgodon quite so large – this could very well be an alpha male.

And then he catches sight of the small, rumpled form that is Obi-Wan, and leaps to intercept the clawed paw sliding towards the boy. Five training 'sabers halt by his side an instant later.

The gorgodon faces Qui-Gon and the remaining five with a leer of dirty white fangs, his long arms dragging along the ground, hard-muscled shoulders rippling. It opens its maw and howls its anger, its body a skulking silhouette framed by the wide mouth of the entrance and the snow beyond–

– And a crystalline peal, as the heavy stalactites overhead fall like lances, impaling the gorgodon with an unpleasant crunch.

Amusement laces the Force like the violent scarlet of gorgodon blood on the pitted stone floor.

As one, Qui-Gon and the five others turn to stare incredulously at Obi-Wan, who smiles weakly as he props himself up on an elbow, one hand still outstretched to the ceiling above the entrance.

Qui-Gon's lightsaber snaps back into its sheath with a hollow hiss. "That was an…untraditional example of Force manipulation," he manages. Other speech eludes him.

Obi-Wan's smile turns into a smirk, then a wince as he tries to rise.

Garen is the first to his side, supporting Obi-Wan's head as he turns a rather interesting shade of green.

"Deep breaths, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon says softly. His fingers move quickly as they undo the thick under-coat, tabards, and linen tunic. They pause when they reach bare skin.

A few feet away, Quinlan gives a low whistle. "Woah. That's a stinger."

"Go tend to our gear," Qui-Gon breaks in. "All of you." As the myriad of footsteps draw fainter, he retrieves his cloak and places it under Obi-Wan's head as a cushion. "Hmmm," Qui-Gon mutters, wincing inwardly as he examines the palette of colours that is Obi-Wan's lower chest. He places a cool hand against the side and pushes lightly. Obi-Wan's mouth opens in a gasp and he flings a glare up at him.

With supreme indifference, Qui-Gon continues his examination. "Bruised ribs," he states matter-of-factly. "They'll take a day or two to heal."

Obi-Wan's gaze turns from accusing to worried.

"Do not fret like an abandoned hatchling," Qui-Gon reprimands as he searches his belt pouch for valerian cream. "It is unbecoming of a Jedi." Gently, he smoothes pain-relieving cream on the bruises, applying warm Force-healing as he does so. A pause, and then he decides to be lenient. "This injury is insufficient to prevent you from retrieving a crystal," he murmurs. Qui-Gon carefully avoids Obi-Wan's gaze, but as he stows away the medical supplies, he makes the mistake of glancing up.

Two enormous grey-blue eyes bore into his very soul.

Qui-Gon all but tears his gaze away and snaps the boy's tunics tight. He allows himself a hidden groan. That boy has the eyes of a snow-ruffled akk pup. Why is it that just when he has decided to leave the folly of what happened on the ship behind, Obi-Wan goes and does something as underhanded as this?

Negotiator.

The word shivers in his mind, dancing out of the Unifying Force like a 'saber blade ignited, and deactivated just as quickly.

As Qui-Gon returns to his other young charges, a stray thought wonders that should Obi-Wan not become a padawan, the Jedi Order would lose far more than the Living Force revealed.

(:~:)

The soft firelight casts rutted shadows over Obi-Wan's face as he curls carefully on his side. Ilum's night cycle is deep and long, longer than Coruscant's and far more beautiful. The chamber they had chosen is hidden in the topmost spire of the Ilum Temple, the floor and walls carved with frescoes of Jedi Masters who have long since joined the Force. The night sky wheels overhead around Aiedail, the north star of Ilum, a sable cloak sewn with diamonds and sapphires, the path of the Galactic Republic reduced and glorified to a simple pennant of stars.

Five other forms huddle around the scant warmth of the smokeless fire, their breathing slow and deep. Obi-Wan knows he must be the only one awake. It is not fear of the gorgodons, or an ache in his chest, or the cold air that keeps him so; it is his thoughts. The heavy, rough fabric of the cloak still spread over him is not unlike its owner; sharp with commands, piercing to approach, but an immensely comforting presence. Obi-Wan can see the Jedi Master from his place on the marble floor, glimpse the twinkle in his eyes as some hidden memory amuses him. Obi-Wan snuggles deeper into Qui-Gon's cloak, breathing in the memory of a hundred worlds, a hundred missions. He knows the gorgodons and Asharl panthers will not harm him tonight. Master Qui-Gon is watchful.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon's gaze does not stray from the sealed and barred door. What occurred earlier that day was almost completely due to a lapse of judgement on his part. Gorgodons were to be expected; he had prepared for them, arriving at mid-morning, when the beasts were usually asleep after a long night hunting. The actual attack had not been that much of a surprise; what does disturb Qui-Gon is that the gorgodon came alone, when their species hunt exclusively in packs. Another anomaly is that it attacked him first, and continued to do so for a good long while. Pack-hunters instinctively go for the weakest, smallest member of a herd – in this case, Luminara or Obi-Wan. The male gorgodon had instead targeted the apparent alpha male, in a complete reversal from its natural behavioural traits.

Qui-Gon shifts in his meditation posture. A nagging suspicion hovers at the edge of his mind. He had replayed the battle hundreds of times in his mind, figuring out the exact positions of every padawan and initiate throughout the chaos. He was startled to find that Obi-Wan had stayed by his side for the entire duration, up until the gorgodon suddenly changed its focus to the boy. Did the gorgodon only attack Obi-Wan when he barred its way to me? But gorgodons are not sentient. That leaves only one other cause.

Force-compulsion.

He shrugs off the theory; the evidence is insubstantial. In fact, Mace would probably have laughed outright at the idea. Qui-Gon can almost hear him. "Now, now, Qui, I know you love pathetic life forms, but who would bother Force-suggesting them?"

Amusement twitches the corners of his lips upward. If only Tahl were here…

Curiosity leaks into the Force behind him, seeping underneath young shields addled by exhaustion and half-slumber.

Qui-Gon rises silently and paces over to the small bundle of brown cloak and red-golden brown hair. Obi-Wan's eyes are shut and his breathing even and controlled, and Qui-Gon hides a smile. Obi-Wan might have been trained in the ways of the Force, but his practical skills are still lacking. His breathing pattern is just a little too controlled to be truly convincing.

"Why are you not asleep, young one?" Qui-Gon sighs, his fingers hovering over the worn folds of the cloak, his cloak, before drawing back.

For the second time in two days, Obi-Wan reaches up, eyes still closed, and taps his temple.

Cryptic as ever. "Do not brood over today's incident. You did well."

Obi-Wan's eyelids flutter open this time, and he shakes his head vigorously. His gaze is elsewhere, reflecting the ageless light of the stars, as he mimes a Force-push, then folds his fingers into a fist so tight his knuckles whiten.

"Ah." Qui-Gon would have chuckled, if he had not so convinced himself against forming further bonds with the boy. At the moment, he is simply teaching as an older Jedi to a younger. "This is your first experience of taking a life with the Force."

A diminutive nod. The riotous spikes of brown hair burrow deeper into warm, rough cloth.

Sweet Force, he's more like me than I thought. Qui-Gon chooses his next words carefully. "And you question the good in you, that you would willingly sacrifice another life?"

Shame floods the Force about them.

"Gorgodons are not sentinent, Obi-Wan. That particular one was even more feral than most of its species. By causing its death, you saved ours." He pauses. Obi-Wan is still, now. Qui-Gon knows he is listening hard under the cloak. "When you called on the Force to break the stalagmites, were you thinking of murder or of harm?" His voice is unassuming, gentle.

The cloak shivers as Obi-Wan's head shakes.

"Intent is as important as the action itself," Qui-Gon says calmly, watching as Obi-Wan's forehead emerges slowly from blankets and cloak until their gazes meet. "You fought with the intent to protect, not to kill," Qui-Gon presses. "That is the true and right intention of a Jedi Guardian."

Obi-Wan's eyes could have been shining saucers. Even though Qui-Gon cannot see the lower half of his face through the cloak, he knows the boy is smiling.

Qui-Gon's fingers itch to pull his cloak tighter about the boy's shoulders, but with an effort of will, he catches himself. "Go to sleep," he murmurs, lacing the words with a subtle Force-suggestion. "You will need all your strength in the morning."

Obi-Wan falls into the comforting embrace of the Force, not knowing whether the hand on his forehead is imagined or tangible.

Qui-Gon doesn't know either.

But for tonight, he guards his young in the Council-chamber of Ilum, the stars spin overhead, and the music of the spheres a gentle lullaby humming with the sonorous melody of the many crystals below.

Chapter Text

On Ilum, the first sliver of pre-dawn light filters warily into the stars, a wreath of autumn-coloured leaves twining over the indigo arch of the sky. Qui-Gon feels the Force thrum with expectation, washing away the ache in his knees from a night kneeling sentinel. There will be no need for meditation this morning. The vaulted ice ceiling seems to capture and amplify the melodic hum of the crystals below, focusing and capturing the morning radiance and bathing them in glorious Light. The Force caresses them in its vergence here, the highest and most central point of the Ilum Jedi enclave. Why would they need to meditate, to center, when the tower of Ilum itself is a focusing crystal for the stars' light?

Qui-Gon suppresses a small smile. The Jedi is the crystal of the Force. Never has this teaching been so aptly coalesced into a single moment.

The circle of slumbering initiates and padawans form a six-pointed star around the dying embers of the fire. Wrapped in their camouflaged white blankets, the young Jedi form the spokes of a snowflake, the glowing warmth of the fire at their heart.

Actually, rather messy snowflake, but a snowflake nonetheless.

Garen Muln sprawls spread-eagled on his stomach under a riotous tumble of bedding, drool threatening to drip from his open mouth. Quinlan Vos lies on his side, shivering slightly and mumbling under his breath, his brow creasing as he wanders in dreams of his past. Reeft Shinren is a chaos of gangly, growing limbs. Luminara Unduli's slight form rests gracefully, hands clasped on her stomach, rising and falling with each slow breath. Huei Tori appears to sleep easy, but – Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow at this – a slightly larger bulge under his cloak reveals where one hand clasps tightly around his training 'saber.

And of course, Obi-Wan Kenobi is curled like a vulnerable akk pup under the dark folds of Qui-Gon's cloak, tufts of ice-limned lighter brown hair curling like soft grass over the top. The Jedi Master frowns as he reaches down to brush the crystals of ice from the surface of the cloak. They were going to have to work on keeping aware of surroundings when sleeping. As much as Padawan Huei Tori's perfection irks him, Qui-Gon knows that a Jedi can never rest easy on any mission. Obi-Wan would have a difficult job of protecting himself should an enemy–

Qui-Gon barely manages to stop himself from spewing a particularly spectacular Huttese curse when he realises where his current train of thoughts are taking him. Obi-Wan is not his Padawan. The burden of training him does not fall to Qui-Gon, but rather his future master, whomever that might be. There is very little chance of him ever seeing the bright young boy again after this mission, as no doubt someone must have observed his prodigious 'saber skills in the last exhibition tournament. That in itself should be merit enough to take Obi-Wan as their padawan. He grimaces; this must a small comfort for one who cannot speak.

But that does not explain the sudden empty feeling in Qui-Gon's stomach, nor an inexplicable sense of loss.

Qui-Gon, to his embarrassment, is startled when a small, warm hand covers his. Obi-Wan's grey-blue irises are sleepy, but somewhat confused as they stare up at the conflicting emotions running across the Jedi Master's face.

"Good. You're awake," Qui-Gon says roughly as he straightens, wiping his features blank with speed born from years of practice. "I've a pot of tea and another of caff over by the fire. Finish your morning ablutions and help yourself."

Obi-Wan nods his understanding, but a small frown of bewilderment downturns his mouth as Qui-Gon slides his hand out from under Obi-Wan's smaller one and grasps the heavy fabric. Turning, Qui-Gon quickly strides to wake the others as he slides into his cloak, pretending not to notice Obi-Wan's questioning gaze on his retreating back, or the wince that passes over the young features as yesterday's injury protests to the motion. Obi-Wan's lingering warmth still saturates Qui-Gon's cloak, but he pushes it away as a distraction.

Initiates and padawans alike wake quietly, any childish grumblings eclipsed by years of rigorous training by crèche masters, or perhaps more so by anticipation of the task before them. Today would be an important rite of passage for all of them; the first in a series of trials set throughout their time as padawans, trials culminating in the age-old ritual of blade passing through braid. All are eager to prove themselves. Even the usually incorrigible Quinlan is slightly subdued.

Conversation is limited and short as they set to a sparse breakfast of dry rations, though Qui-Gon notices that Obi-Wan's cup is the only one with the clear green scent of tea rising from its lip. The caff pot is emptied quickly, with five separate small hands reaching for it at once. Obi-Wan appears slightly surprised but grateful when a large hand silently offers to refill his tea, and Qui-Gon fervently hopes that the boy does not realise this is the result of a vague feeling of guilt for confusing him earlier.

The moment of departure reaches them unannounced in its suddenness. The line of smaller forms trail in the shadow of the larger one as they march quietly down the empty corridors. There are no gorgodons in the alcoves on this frosty morning, or asharl panthers padding in the inky recesses. The entire temple holds its breath in reverent silence, as if the hallowed halls of an Order past have been undisturbed for centuries, dust and light and snow melding into one still, grey ambivalence, neither welcoming or foreboding. The gravity of rich history weighs in a heavy lack of sound on seven sets of shoulders, their echoing steps chanting the Crystal Code over tributaries of memories, flowing into the torrent of the Force. Down this river winds, over arched staircases that were once fair, through hidden gardens and iced-over colonnades, a solemn, growing tide, until it flows out to an open courtyard and into a yawning cavern, where it plummets in a waterfall of soundless joy and sorrow to dance in the crystalline chambers below.

Qui-Gon levels his gaze at the entrance to the crystal caves, wondering at how the sight never fails to make him feel insignificant, despite his growing age and rank. The courtyard is hushed in a blanket of pure white behind him, broken only by the crisp crunch of footsteps.

"Stop here." Qui-Gon's usually loud voice seems muffled, swallowed on one side by darkness and on the other by a desert of ice and snow. Six thumps of packs hitting the ground are similarly quiet. Qui-Gon closes his eyes. There are never right words for this moment, only necessary ones.

"What each of you face in these caves will be different," he begins, looking into each young face before him. Determination, apprehension, wonder. "This is the first of your trials, and should you find success, you will be another step closer to becoming a Knight." As always, the younglings' gazes brighten at this, and Qui-Gon pauses to harden his heart against what he has to say next. "Not all of you may succeed," he says softly. He does not need to raise his voice, for every eye is riveted upon him. "It may be the Will of the Force. Not every initiate or padawan is destined to be a Jedi."

Obi-Wan's gaze flicks to his feet, and up again, so fleeting that Qui-Gon nearly misses the motion.

"But this does not constitute failure," Qui-Gon continues, his words growing lighter. "A Jedi does not live solely to serve the Republic, and to serve the Order." Dimly, he wonders if he is taking this too far, but he continues nonetheless. Obi-Wan has to understand. "A Jedi is the crystal of the Force," he recites, his gaze growing sharp and his smile fierce. "You serve the Force, first and foremost. Remember this, and even should you return empty-handed, you have succeeded far more than one who wrests a crystal forcibly from the rock."

There are mixed reactions to Qui-Gon's declaration. Huei tilts his head and says nothing, but his eyes glitter perceptively. Luminara similarly seems undecided. Obi-Wan, however, appears to light up from within, his blindingly bright smile a laugh that dances a ghostly path in Qui-Gon's mind. Intangible, imagined?

He brushes it aside. One last warning. "The traditions forbid bringing any weapons with you. You may wear a coat and carry a signal flare, but every Jedi enters the caves arrayed according to their own choice."

Six serious faces stare back at him, young, but no longer naïve. Jedi younglings never were.

Qui-Gon nods in return, a dip of the head that is almost a bow. A last salute, to those who venture far. Heaviness burdens his words. "Then may the Force be with you."

Huei enters first, wrapped in his sturdy winter coat, headlamp seeming to throw more sable on the walls than luminance. Luminara follows a respectful pause later, her head uncovered and clad only in her light inner coat and leggings. Quinlan, Garen and Reeft are swallowed by the darkness almost at the same moment, their small torches but fireflies quickly consumed by night.

Obi-Wan does not meet Qui-Gon's gaze as he divests himself of double coats, boots, thick outer trousers and gloves. Tabards and obi join the neat pile at his feet. When he stands again, he is only clothed in the thin linen tunic and coarse, loose-fitting trousers of the Jedi Order. His bare feet curl pink in the snow.

"Do you not intend to carry a lamp with you?" The words slip out of Qui-Gon's lips before his mind even conceived of it. The question echoes with concern – not that he would actively show it, of course.

Flimsy and stylus are produced, a quick line spun in spidery letters across the surface. Obi-Wan's hands are steady when he hands the sheet cross to him, the worn page still warm from his skin, but Qui-Gon does not miss the slight tremble in the boy's fingers as they leave the flimsy.

The Force trickles around them, binding them, as Qui-Gon lowers his gaze to Obi-Wan's reply.

A slash of horizontal ink, a salute and disarming strike in one. 'I wear my robe so that I am warm; I carry my lightsaber so that I am safe; and I keep enough credits for my next meal, so that I am not hungry. If the Force wants me to have more, it finds a way of letting me know.' – Jedi Master Sora Kagoro

Qui-Gon finds himself blinking rapidly as an unexpected rush of pride rises in his chest. "A fitting quote, little one," he murmurs. He does not ruin Obi-Wan's carefully crafted work by mentioning that of Master Kagaro's three statements, neither of the latter two apply to him. "Are you quite sure?" Qui-Gon ventures, knowing he is pushing the boundaries but deciding he doesn't care.

Obi-Wan nods fervently, a hint of a grin at the corners of his mouth. Little one.

Qui-Gon makes to return the flimsy, but Obi-Wan shakes his head gently, raising his hands to fold Qui-Gon's rougher fingers over the crackling sheet. Obi-Wan's now-cold fingers remain there longer than strictly necessary – and neither of them is quite sure who is deriving more comfort from the touch – before he withdraws, places his stylus carefully on his gear, and bows low to Qui-Gon.

Qui-Gon bows back just as respectfully, chuckling at Obi-Wan's obvious wonder. For a moment, they stand opposite each other, small smiles on their faces, eyes twinking and serious.

Then Obi-Wan turns and paces into the darkness, not looking back.

In the sudden, frozen hollowness of the air, Qui-Gon tucks the flimsy into his tunic and lets the words warm his heart. It is a paltry comfort, but it will have to suffice for the long wait to come.

(:~:)

Dark.

When the absence of light is so complete, paradoxical, ethereal forms mold themselves out of pure sable, currents of shadow and lines of obsidian, preludes to nightmares and enchanting lullabies, all intangible, changing, half-imagined and yet real. Endless emptiness, cold air, no sound, no touch, no time. There is no time here, for light is held captive. Night without the songbird, sky without stars, horizonless ink in the waters of the mind. There is nothing. Save for the Force.

Obi-Wan clings to the Force like a blind man to his cane as he wanders for an indeterminable period, knowing that although time does not flow, the Force does still, a solitary running river in a still desert. His feet have long lost all feeling; he might have walked ten galactic standard kilometres or ten parsecs, though more likely the former. In this state of non-being, he slips into meditation as easily as falling asleep. Centering himself when there is no centre requires no effort at all.

The first glow is so muted and so soft, Obi-Wan nearly forgets to breathe.

With each step, crystals flicker to life by his feet, in the walls, in hidden recesses and yet-unexplored pathways, growing free and unhindered on the ley lines of the Force, golden spider-silk that wreathes about him in thrumming strings of power. Gossamer thin, they glisten softly in the shadows, driving back the dark, lending his frozen limbs new strength and giving him sight deeper than any other. This new world is lit only in a manner that Force-sensitives can see, where the Force is concentrated as thick as warmth under the noonday sun.

Obi-Wan walks a hidden path of innumerable stars, sapphire, azure and cerulean, emerald, harlequin, and jade. Mauve and violet flash here and there, gold, teal and jasmine white. Scarlet is here, too, but it is untainted by the Sith, like new blood thrumming with the Force's heart. Iridescent crystals wink at him like jewels on all sides, but these are not pure enough for his purposes. What he seeks lies deeper.

And then the golden ley-lines flicker and condense into a corporeal form.

Obi-Wan bows once to a silvery-sapphire Qui-Gon, who smiles down at him, the corners of his eyes wrinkling with lines Obi-Wan has not seen before, like the strands of grey in his hair. A glowing hand reaches over Obi-Wan's shoulder, fingering a braid that is not there. There is such affection and familiarity in the movement that Obi-Wan feels words rise in his throat. But for once, his inability to speak truly betrays him, and he can only open and close his mouth helplessly below his shining eyes.

But Qui-Gon nods in understanding, his own lips parting in a chuckle, deep and sonorous. "Courage, Padawan mine. A long, hard road lies ahead." The words reverberate in Obi-Wan's mind, and he knows that this Qui-Gon does not only refer to his path to the crystal. And his heart is still reeling from the title. Padawan!

Qui-Gon stands aside, bowing gravely. "And do give my younger self a good kicking for his stubbornness," he seems to laugh. "You both have much to learn. From each other." A last brush of an imaginary braid, fingers hovering over air.

Then his master is gone, leaving only spots of darkness in his vision.

Obi-Wan blinks back a sudden film of moisture over his vision, and stumbles forward, grasping at the courage he has been given.

(:~:)

In the half-shadowed courtyard, Qui-Gon flows through the motions of a level five advanced Ataru kata, the harlequin hum of his 'saber whirling spheres of dazzling light around his silhouetted form. Sweeping into a dodge, the whirring blade passes a tight circle around his body, intercepting an invisible weapon. The Force curls about his feet in eager anticipation, and like a coiled spring set free from its box, Qui-Gon dives through the air, cloak and hair snow-edged pennants twisting over the ever-changing crisp green of his lightsaber.

He had mastered this kata decades ago, reforged it through years of fire, and quenched it with loss, creating a silvered dance that flows effortlessly from moment to moment in silk-covered steel. This particular rendition should be no different to any before, and even to the eyes of Battlemaster Anoon Bondara, it is still a masterpiece.

But the difference lies in the folded piece of flimsy next to his heart.

It is a worn page, a leaf of acrylic rough with use – and it is Obi-Wan's voice. That Obi-Wan would entrust him with something so precious had shocked Qui-Gon to the core. In a single movement, Obi-Wan had taken Qui-Gon's stubborn shields and decimated them. It is not a Makashi mark of dishonor, like his old master would have done, or a Vaapad disarming strike, but a simple Shii-Cho thrust that he should have seen coming from light-years away.

There is no emotion. There is peace.

And there is Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon sinks deeper into his active meditation, yearning, hoping for a release from the path that the Force so clearly wants him to tread, and knows that when he finishes his kata, when he reels in the threads of the Force that he flings out in whiplashes of green and white, the answer will be what he had feared.

His lightsaber slews messily to a halt, the bright hum fading in a broken-off slash that jerks him into full awareness. The plasma blade hisses back into its hilt, and Qui-Gon hooks the weapon back onto his belt, his chest heaving as he returns to the beginning position, hands by his sides, back straight, eyes closed.

Fear. The answer is there. He fears to take another Padawan.

Yoda's crotchety old voice floats back to him from his younger years. "Fear leads to anger, hmm? And anger leads to suffering. Face his fear, a Jedi must."

Qui-Gon fights a bizzare desire to laugh. So I have been blind all this time. He stills himself, and he listens. And when he is ready, he opens his eyes and starts anew.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan knows he has almost reached his goal when the visions begin to glow brighter, obscuring detail and becoming ever more clouded. A featureless aquamarine figure rises out of the ground, fingers stroking his cheek. Obi-Wan knows that perhaps he should be apprehensive, but such radiance and warmth radiates from the presence that he does not find the need to. It does not speak as he passes, but words reach his mind nonetheless: Take care of this stubborn barve for me, will you, dear?

One after another; the visions are relentless, leaving Obi-Wan barely aware of the taste of blood on his tongue, the dryness of his throat, the heaving of his breaths as his pace grows uneven. The words sink deep. They might lie dormant for years, or for days. But Obi-Wan has no time to dwell on the matter, for the next of his futures is upon him.

At a fork in the tunnel, a divergence in the Force, a single small form glows with the brightness of a hundred suns, burning with white fire, a figure made purely from the Force itself. Obi-Wan's vision shifts; he sees flashes of golden-brown hair, rough tunics, sky-blue eyes. And he hears a young voice, excited, adoring: "Master!"

Obi-Wan dares not think too deeply on what this means. The very idea that he should make the journey to knighthood, and from there train a padawan of his own is but a distant dream.

But what lies behind this small image is deeply disturbing. One tunnel glows red with the scarlet crystals embedded in the walls, the Force within seething with imbalance. The other is equally as dark, a wave of crimson hexagons choking emerald and sapphire. But at the very end, there is a glimmer of purest azure.

Obi-Wan turns into the second tunnel, and staggers forward blindly, groping for the bright star of pure light, the visions threatening to overwhelm him in a torrent of emotions and sound. A dry, rocky world, a pit in the ground swarming with droids and men in white and yellow armour, the number 66 flashing before his eyes, the sensation of falling; a terrible heat, magma, screams. With each stumbling step, crimson crystals sweep over the pure blue and green luminance beside him, until he is a solitary sapphire star in an overarching sky of blood. A scream he knows he cannot release claws at his throat; the Force slams into him in one shocking gust of wind, and–

A baby's newborn cry echoes in his ears, a haunting, joyful melody, joined by a second child's a moment later, forming a wonderful, soothing duet. The world of red shivers, quivering before his eyes; and shatters like the shards of a mirror.

Obi-Wan lets out a soundless shout as he squeezes his eyes shut, a cacophony of noise ringing in his ears.

Silence.

With sobbing, gasping breaths, Obi-Wan forces open his eyes, sneaking a look over his shoulder to find only a blank wall of ice behind him. Daylight lances in on him out of a small opening above. He is exhausted; rivulets of sweat run down his face, intermingled with shameless tears. He digs his fists into the ground, and winces as something hard in his palm digs into his skin.

Hardly daring to hope, Obi-Wan raises his closed fist to eye-level and slowly opens his fingers.

An azure crystal lies enthroned on his pale skin, perfect and simple and deadly all at once, singing to him softly in a language he does not understand, but somehow knows, like the lullabies his mother must have sung to him as a baby, swaddled in the cocoon of the Force. The light shimmers as it glances off the angled surface, throwing a spectrum of iridescent colour in a dazzling whirlwind of colour on the icy walls around him. And when Obi-Wan begins to laugh, the silent wheezing of his breath the only indication of his relief, the crystal chuckles with him, giving his laugh sound and music and beauty that only he can hear.

Obi-Wan does not quite know how he manages it, but it is only when daylight washes over his icy limbs and his hands and feet fall crunching into snow does he realise that he has emerged into the open. The sky wheels overhead, endless.

Clutching his crystal close to his heart, Obi-Wan curls into a ball in the freshly fallen snow and lets the Force flow through him. He has never realized quite how beautiful Ilum is before.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon is beginning to worry. Contrary to what 'starting anew' usually entails for members of the Jedi Order, he had spent most of the past few hours brooding relentlessly over Obi-Wan's safety. The others had returned, one by one, trailing out of the main entrance and other side caverns, half-frozen, wide smiles of victory on their features, to wrap themselves in cloaks and share their experiences with voices shaking from chattering teeth. Garen in particular is grinning like a maniac even as his quivering hand threatens to spill hot caff all over himself.

And yet Obi-Wan has not returned.

Qui-Gon meanders over to the cliff face next to the main entrance, hoping that the delicate patterns in the ice would distract him. But alas, to no avail. His thoughts turn to Obi-Wan once again – he would owe the boy an apology. A wry smile spreads. Tahl would have the pleasure of victory once again.

A sudden chill in the Force.

Qui-Gon senses the spike of wrongness a moment before he feels a flutter of passing air, like the subtle wake of a Force-push. He frowns, beginning to turn–

And an ear-splitting crack resounds through the air as the entire cliff face breaks off, plummeting towards him in a maelstrom ice and splinters.

There is no time to even cry out as suffocating darkness surrounds him. As the last of the daylight vanishes, Qui-Gon's fading thoughts are of the younglings.

And Obi-Wan.

Chapter Text

Of all the usual emotions associated with being buried alive, Qui-Gon Jinn, true to his maverick reputation, chooses a rather surprising one – annoyance. There is no trace of panic or desperation in his steady heart as he takes shallow, measured breaths, conserving the air pocket he created with the Force the moment the ice surrounded him. As he withdraws deeply within himself to conserve oxygen, his irritation at his predicament soars to new heights. This particular meditation is… novel, to say the least; Qui-Gon does not so much release his aggravation into the Force as upend his prodigious repertoire of multi-lingual expletives into its swelling currents.

This is most decidedly not his favoured method of dying. Not that any sentient being would have a 'favoured' manner of death in particular, but in his youth he had always supposed, in the morbid, fascinated interest of younglings, that he would die of a devastating Sith-'sabered sai cha strike to the neck, blood spilling gloriously messily on the battlefield. In his padawan days, he had been disabused of this fanciful notion by his Master's stern Sentinel lectures, and so moved on to the much more pleasant idea of sacrificing his own life while protecting the younglings within the temple. Of course, this thread of thought would be both meaningless and unnecessary, since – as he had contemplated with incredulity before – the Jedi Temple would have to fall for that situation to become a reality.

And then finally, as unlikely as the dream is to be, Qui-Gon had settled on a distant, wistful vision – to die old and grey, a veteran of the field, his legacy passed onto generations of Jedi to come, his final moments illuminated in the eternal music of the Room of a Thousand Fountains.

A small smile curves his lips in the suffocating, heavy dark. In other words, dying as an irritable old gundark, maverick to the end of his days. Tahl would be proud.

Tahl.

Qui-Gon would have once said that if he and Tahl were to die together, he would be satisfied, no matter what the circumstances… but he finds his thoughts turning to another Jedi, younger and different in every way, but as dependent on him as Tahl is, if not more.

Obi-Wan's face flutters in and out of Qui-Gon's conciousness, smiling, pensive, serious, amused, worried. Qui-Gon has known the boy but a few days, and already his features and their many expressions are archived in exquisite detail in Qui-Gon's mind.

Wonderful. Now annoyance has given way to regret.

There is no death. There is the Force.

A hazy thought surfaces, floundering in the stilling waves of his mind. His lonely smile widens. Oxygen deprivation and Force immersion is somewhat equivalent to a drunken stupor. He might have received what he wanted after all…a quiet death, as easy as falling asleep and letting the Force surround him.

At the threshold of consciousness, Qui-Gon pauses, supposes he should wait a few moments. For what, he does not know, but the Force murmurs quietly in its lullaby that the music is not done. When Qui-Gon groans and falls deeper, the resistance only strengthens. It seems that becoming one with the Force requires it to accept you, and the Force has decided to throw a tantrum of protest.

Who knew? Qui-Gon whispers silently to the Force, amusement glinting like a duller light in a river of luminance. You're a maverick like me.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan grimaces with weariness as he nears the citadel, his heart still filled with the inexplicable feeling of dread that rushed into him mere minutes ago. With a last burst of nervous energy, he rushes uncharacteristically clumsily into the rear courtyard of the Ilum Jedi Temple to find a scene of utter chaos.

Quinlan is hacking at the maze of fettered debris with his training 'saber, white-lipped and strangely quiet in his fervour. The low-temperature blade barely makes a dent. Silent tears run down Luminara's cheeks as she tends to a moaning Reeft, whose sleeve is rolled up to expose a deep gash, the shard of ice that caused it lying scarlet-limned a short distance away. Garen's eyes are suspiciously wet. His desperate Force-pushes hardly disturb the sharp peaks and crystalline mountains of translucent blue ice.

Qui-Gon is nowhere to be found.

Obi-Wan's lungs seem to seize up as he comes to the inescapable conclusion. Numbly, his gaze rakes over the wide morass of ice shards and small boulders, and the scarred cliff-face above the undisturbed entrance to the crystal caves. Master Qui-Gon…

Through the desolation permeating the Force, a sudden spike of something dark wavers in the tepid waters, like a shadow in the corner of his vision. Obi-Wan's head snaps towards the citadel, and finds nothing… except Huei Tori, who stares blankly over all, his mask of immaculate calm shattered at his feet, frozen with disbelief. All his padawan perfection is worth nothing in the face of such a tragedy.

Obi-Wan searches within himself for panic, for fear, for the scream that he knows will not make it past his throat.

He finds only calm.

The Force commands him, and he obeys. When he moves, he glides across the hard ground without haste. Garen and Quinlan cease their efforts, turning stricken eyes towards Obi-Wan's progress, confusion and exhaustion creasing their brows. Luminara similarly looks up from her medical supplies, dashing tears from her eyes as she stares unabashedly at his peace.

Obi-Wan ignores them all and kneels by his pack in meditation position, reaching within his tunic for his azure crystal. It hovers above his hands, a solitary blue star in a bleached sky of white. Quinlan shouts something at him, but he brushes it aside. This is not where he had intended to do this, but the Force tells him, quietly, here.

A maelstrom whirls in the Force around him as the others give in to their emotions, sending fear, despair, doubt, curiosity, anger, and sorrow in a dizzying barrage against his shields. Obi-Wan is the eye of the storm, the still, silent air that charges with electricity in the centre of chaos. There is no passion. There is serenity. Here, in this paradox of white and colour that is the Ilum and the Force, the crystal hums a soothing lullaby. And Obi-Wan listens.

The crystal is a conduit of the Force. The Unifying Force flows around him, whispering of what there is to come, of winters without spring and night without stars, of wind on his hair and salt on his lips, of waiting in sunset for returning voices at the door. Obi-Wan's heart slows, matching the rhythm of the pulsing crystal, which in turn dances to the hidden melody of the Living Force. He does not feel the need to breathe, even, for he and the Force are one.

The azure star on his palm glows with hidden light. The crystal is the heart of the blade.

The crystal dances with each beat of his heart. The heart is the crystal of the Jedi.

His heart rejoices as it listens to the music of the spheres. The Jedi is the crystal of the Force.

And the symphony of stars gives him his answer. The Force is the blade of the heart.

Obi-Wan's eyes open, but his gaze is focussed on a separate world, where time does not flow but hovers in one laughing crest for eternity. He raises a hand, and carved pieces of chrome and obsidian rise out of his pack, drifting towards him. Each component is exquisitely detailed, etched with hope and quenched with tears. When finished, they would form the weapon of a Jedi, an aspiration light-years away and barred by trials of blood, loss, and speech. This is the blade of his heart, for his hopes and his dreams, his identity and all his unspoken words are fired into it, to guard against the trials to come.

All are interwined.

The unassembled hilt hovers around the crystal, forming an unfinished mosaic of aspirations and failures.

The crystal, the blade, the Jedi.

If Obi-Wan tilts his head ever so slightly, he can hear the stars dance above, the crystal humming in his hand, and the drumbeat of his heart, steady in his chest. For once, he does not need to speak, for it all sings to him.

We are one.

The curved mosaic of the saber hilt fuses into a seamless whole, obscuring but never hiding the radiance of the crystal within.

The dazzling flash of the azure blade flings back the residual darkness in the Force like a storm gale scything through wildgrass, a vergence in the Force so strong that the very air tastes of the plasma effluvia of the blade. It is incandescent, pure, like silver through the forge and deadly in its purpose.

Obi-Wan raises his gaze at the rubble of ice and rock, and sees nothing but the currents of the Force parting like water around their sharp-edged forms. His lightsaber sings eagerly in his palm, a lightning bolt of arcing energy that sets the frosted wind around its blade afire.

And as he strides forward, Obi-Wan feels a stray chord in the music of the Force call to him, and his mind fills with glorious light as he flings open the locked doors of a new bond, his own solo melody warping, variating to a crescendo, laughing as it transforms into a duet.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon gasps as a torch is hurled into his mind, lighting his nerves aflame and flaring bright pain in his cramped muscles. His Force-addled gaze flickers down towards his chest, and his breath would have hitched if there were any air left. A glowing, golden cord flows out of his heart and into the Force, an astral tether to the heavens, attached to some solid, unknown anchor. He summons the last of his strength and tugs weakly on this shining lifeline, ignoring the pain that stabs his heart as he does so. Waiting is an agony of silence, the shadows swarming in on the connection like acid to a web. But an answer pulses back to him, and a beautiful awareness blossoms in the back of his mind.

Qui-Gon clings to this bond like a drowning man to his rope, pleading with the Force to sustain him.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan has just finished his last Force-jump when the voice echoes behind his eyes, half image, half sound. Is that you, padawan mine? The voice is weary, fading, but brings with it a strange picture of a smile in the dark, glowing from beneath his feet.

Urgency gives his motions effortless grace. Obi-Wan's 'saber spins in an iridescent circle of impenetrable blue light before sliding into the ice, the edges of the molten wound it carves sparking and hissing with steam as the plasma current wars with rime and compressed stone. Billows of vapour flow past his sweaty hands, and he barely notices the parched desert of his throat, the frostbitten stiffness of his fingers, and the traces of red his bare feet leave as they pivot over the jagged surface.

It is only when the voice speaks again does Obi-Wan fully understand the speaker and his words. Qui-Gon's brush is fettered with exhaustion. Padawan, is that you?

The title cartwheels against his reined-in emotions, formal and affectionate all at once. Obi-Wan so dearly wants to answer – he can feel speech upon his lips, hammering against that invisible barrier to the air – but as his 'saber flashes three-quarters of the way through a circle, the Force whispers to him again. Without stopping to think, Obi-Wan gathers all his wishes and pain, loss and joy and sends it into the bond.

His lips move; but he does know if he speaks aloud or shouts his elation into the Force itself.

But the words ring true in the Force nonetheless: Yes, Master! It's me!

As his 'saber completes its rotation in the ice, Obi-Wan reaches out with a chapped hand and levers the circle of ice out and into the air, flinging it to shatter against the cliff face. A curled form resides in the resulting opening.

Cerulean eyes meet grey-blue for the briefest of moments, and Qui-Gon Jinn's lips part in a tiny, grateful chuckle.

And then Obi-Wan's 'saber hisses back into its hilt, and the ice rushes up to meet him, even as Garen shouts something unintelligible behind him and overlapping exclamations explode through the echoing ruins of the cliff-face.

As the golden awareness at the back of his mind folds into his unconsciousness, he hears his master murmur, as if in surprise: Why yes, padawan. It's you.

Obi-Wan's features should be frozen, but they somehow curve into a grin as the Force cradles him into oblivion.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon floats on a comfortable cloud of drug-induced stupor, blocking out all interference as easily as if he were in front of the Council, walling up his mind against their unending blather. But apparently his shields have deteriorated somewhat. If he could only get rid of that aggravating beeping…

Wait. Beeping?

Qui-Gon cracks open one clear cerulean eye and takes in the fake, digitalised smile of the medi-droid hovering next to him. "And how are we feeling, dearie?" it croons in a terrifying mix of motherly and robotic overtones.

A pause.

In hindsight, maybe he should not haveput that much power into his Force push, because now Vokara Che would have his head for the bits of fried circuitry, metal scraps and sensor plates that are all that remain of a once perfectly functional medi-droid. The Healer's Wing of the Jedi Temple is otherwise silent. His memories are muddled.

As luck would have it – or perhaps the Force is feeling soft – it is not Master Che, but someone else who turns up first.

"Avarin!" Qui-Gon grins amiably at the tall Healer. "I thought you were on extended leave!"

Avarin's mane of silver-black hair swings past his shoulders as he shrugs. "I decided to come back early," he replies genially, sea-blue eyes twinkling merrily. "Home never changes overmuch. It is not… dull, exactly, but I prefer my duties here."

"I don't know how you manage the journey," Qui-Gon says, blinking as Avarin flicks a light into each eye. "Your home planet is in uncharted Wild Space, as I recall."

"Hmm. Yes," Avarin murmurs under his breath, eyes fixed on a reading. "Asgard. It's quite beautiful, and well worth the time needed to travel there. Though should you decide to visit, I'm afraid your journey would be far longer than mine."

This has Qui-Gon's attention. "How? A private hyperspace lane?" he wonders. "That would be illegal by galactic standards–"

"I'm diplomatically immune," Avarin cuts in, raising an eyebrow as he finishes his medical examination. His deep green tunic sleeve slides over the panel as he taps a few buttons. "And speaking of legalities, you know you could be legally bound to pay for that sorry pile of scrap metal over there? Did it wake you from your happy place?" A callused hand flicks towards the remains of the medi-droid, and the debris arranges itself in a neat pile, as if by magic.

Qui-Gon is undaunted by the skilled display of Force-manipulation. "It was annoying me."

"It was doing its job."

The fleetest of smirks passes over Qui-Gon's features. "So are you, apparently. I'm quite irritated."

"Good. That's the whole point of your being here."

Qui-Gon shakes his head, chuckling. "Why aren't you a Jedi?"

Avarin hardly spares him a glance. "You know why. I wasn't found." Master Avarin, despite being the feared Vokara Che's second-in-command, and contrary to his title, is not a Jedi. He, however, has nearly singularly proved that he is Jedi in all but name. When Avarin introduced himself to the Jedi Council a decade previous, he had never heard of the Force, per se. And yet his Force manipulation rivals Master Even Piell's, his Force-healing – apparently self-learnt – earning the respect of Vokara Che. When questioned about philosophy and ideals, he had led Yoda in an hour-long debate on the various merits of the Jedi Code before Mace Windu had one of his rare fits of impatience and promptly gave him the position of second-most senior Healer in the Jedi Temple.

He does not carry a lightsaber. But somehow the two silver knives he always carries tucked away in hidden sheaths on his belt eclipses the presence of a 'saber.

And so, every Jedi from the youngest crècheling to the most senior master – save for Vokara Che – calls him Master Avarin. It does not matter that he has no last name, or that his home is a 'funny-sounding planet from Wild Space', or his dubious diplomatic immunity, or that the Force flickers about him in unending amusement. He is a master of his craft, and receives the respect that he is due.

When working in tandem with Vokara Che, Avarin is immaculate in his rhetoric and nothing but a gentleman in his mannerisms. In fact, for one Obi-Wan Kenobi, he is very nearly the object of wild hero-worship. Very nearly, for Kenobi's irrepressible feud with any and all things medical is sufficient deterrent for the boy to exercise restraint.

"Well," Avarin comments drily, "You're fine now, for the most part, save for a few frostbitten toes and such."

Now? Qui-Gon frowns. "Avarin, how long…"

The healer halts mid motion, understanding. "Four days. You were unconscious for four days." His aquamarine eyes glitter with amusement. "Those children you were guarding were quite resourceful. Particularly one Obi-Wan Kenobi…"

A dry swallow. "Yes. And–"

Avarin doesn't miss a beat. "You will find your padawan down the hall. I had to threaten to abolish his right to visit you before he would consent to be admitted. He had quite an impressive range of injuries, even for one returning from Ilum. His bruised ribs, for one thing."

"Thank you." Qui-Gon means it.

Avarin's smile turns into an unrestrained grin of pure delight. "Oh, so you have taken another padawan! Tahl told me you did when she came by a few hours ago. I wouldn't worry about introducing Obi-Wan to her, by the way. I think she's already in love."

Qui-Gon gapes at him, speechless. Then something much more pressing captures his attention. "Avarin," he begins, dead serious.

The dark-haired head turns at the door. Evidently, Avarin knows when to retreat. "Yes, Master Jinn?" he returns lightly.

Qui-Gon's hand rubs at his chin. "What happened to my beard?"

"Ah. That." Avarin's mouth twitches.

"You're at least a decade younger than I am, Master Avarin," Qui-Gon growls. "You may have decided to be clean-shaven, but I have not."

Avarin glances down at his neatly tailored green tunics, thin leather belt, and sensible black trousers and boots. "I'm older than I look. Trust me on that. And just because I have the advantage of better taste–"

"Avarin."

A barely suppressed grin. "The younglings were in charge of your wellbeing until your ship returned to Coruscant, where we were waiting to take over. Understandably, there were…complications, onboard. They had trouble fitting an oxygen mask on your face, so they addressed the root of the problem."

Qui-Gon's gaze bores into the other man's nonchalant eyes. "And who, may I ask, proposed addressing this in such a manner?"

Avarin's face falls in misery. "Alas. I am sworn to secrecy," he declares, melancholy dripping off him in dollops.

A snort. "It was Obi-Wan, wasn't it."

The healer slumps against the doorframe. "My honour would be tarnished if I were to reveal–"

"Your bantha-brained honour can Turn for all I care. I'll take that as a yes," Qui-Gon growls. "I'm going to see him. It seems that our first upbraiding session has arrived earlier than I thought it would."

Avarin sweeps out with a bow, somehow making the motion elegant and mocking all at once. "I'll inform Master Uvain, shall I? She wanted to know when you woke." His voice fades down the corridor. "And I'll tell Master Yoda!"

Avarin never lets anyone have the last word. Grumbling to himself, Qui-Gon climbs out of bed, groaning as a hundred aches announce their happy presence. He snags a passing helper droid with a tendril of the Force, then proceeds to bully it into bringing him proper clothes. Force be scorned – he will not turn up for his first meeting with his padawan dressed in a medical gown.

Embarrassment aside, Qui-Gon owes his Obi-Wan a healthy dose of gratitude. And an apology.

Chapter Text

Upon his waking in the Temple Medcenter that morning, Obi-Wan had been offered a very refreshing cup of strong caff by the padawan on duty, pumped with another dose of anti-pathogen drugs, given free rein to order whatever he liked for breakfast from the service droid, and to top it all off, no-one had batted an eyelid when he programmed another two all-purpose droids to struggle to the archives and back with a veritable mountain of holo-books.

Obi-Wan is the most pampered patient under the Healers' care, to be sure. But he is in no way satisfied with his situation.

The caff was…caff. Ugh. He had wanted tea with breakfast, but the droid had returned with a stewing cup of hot leaf juice seemingly squelched from the dregs of unrefined deathsticks. Obi-Wan had taken a sip, gagged, and spat the liquid onto the floor at the precise moment Master Vokara Che came in for his morning checkup. Practically burning from the fire-like severity of her gaze, he had bowed his apology until his head threatened to drop off and then mopped up the mess himself. Hence, his delayed breakfast had been somewhat muted. The atmosphere in his room plummeted to dejection when he found that the drugs had completely shut off his taste buds. There he was, dining regally on muja sherbet, a small part of a morning feast that would have given Crèche Master Ali-Alann a stroke if he had known about it – and Obi-Wan might as well have been eating plain ice.

So now in the afternoon, he is ever so slightly uncentered as he attempts to lose himself in the philosophical writings of Jedi Master Vodo-Siosk Baas. The solace he so desperately seeks evades him in the shimmering Aubresh lines of history, teaching and order. An inexplicable sense of wrongness still writhes in his gut. On Ilum, when the Force had sung to him and directed his movements, there had been a moment when something Dark shifted in his vision. Obi-Wan had sensed nothing afterwards, not when he woke to find himself swaddled in cloaks in the ship's tiny medbay, Qui-Gon Jinn unconscious on the bunk opposite. When questioned, the others had expressed surprise, as they had felt nothing themselves. Garen had further moaned about the difficulties of piloting the ship over the rear courtyard of the citadel and the combined effort of the other four in Force-lifting Master Jinn and Obi-Wan up the hovering ramp.

A tiny grin flickers over his face, though, when he recalls what they had to do in order to fix an oxygen mask to Qui-Gon's face. The grin turns into a frown when he considers the possible consequences.

Qui-Gon would not be too irked, surely? Shaving off his beard had been necessary. The amusement derived from wielding the razor himself is entirely another matter. And when Master Jinn does bring it up, Obi-Wan would simply quote that Jedi do not form unnecessary attachments.

Master Qui-Gon Jinn.

Master.

Some small part of Obi-Wan – the instinctive, natural twelve-year-old part of his mind unaffected by his lengthy training – wonders whether he had dreamt Qui-Gon's words. The Force had been roaring in his ears and his lightsaber crackling with fire in his hand, and so Qui-Gon's first whispered "Padawan," simply seemed too good to be true.

And then there was the matter of the connection. It could not be a Master/Padawan bond, surely? Garen had subjected Obi-Wan to many tales of how his fledgling bond with Master Clee Rhara had slowly grown, tendril by tendril. Obi-Wan had never heard of a connection formed as quickly as that shining, glowing thread of pure energy between him and Qui-Gon before. Was it some unknown quirk of the Force, forged to aid Qui-Gon's rescue?

Even now, when Obi-Wan reaches for the nub of the anchor in the back of his mind, the bond stretches off into the unknown, like a golden rope frayed into unpolished wire leading into murky darkness. He cannot sense Qui-Gon at all.

Of course, by the time Obi-Wan realises he has spent the last half hour brooding intensely instead of reading, he has already managed to give himself a splitting headache.

It is a combined effect of migraine and drugs that render his Force-sensitivity low enough so that he does not see the thundercloud in the Force coming when he should have.

Bruck Chun explodes into Obi-Wan's room like a brazen Besalisk drunk on his own self-importance. "Hello, mute boy," he drawls, flashing a dangerous smile at Obi-Wan. At Obi-Wan's glare, Bruck steamrolls on, relishing in his own voice. Especially since the other boy has none. "Don't bother replying. I won't ask anything of you that will exceed your capabilities."

Obi-Wan's lips thin into a white line. He raises a hand, waves open the door, and motions.

Bruck barely turns his head. Instead, his smirk reaches new heights of narcissism as his head of white hair shakes with his head. "Oh, no, Oafy. I'm going to impinge on your hospitality for a while longer." He stalks closer. "Was that eloquent enough for you? What I don't understand," he mutters angrily, "is how you suck up to all those masters without saying anything."

He gets a stony, emotionless face in return, but the gentle rhythm of Obi-Wan's heartbeat sensor erupts into a quickening frenzy.

A satisfied sneer. Bruck Chun is the son of a ruthless politician and every bit as slimy as his father. He knows when he has a tactical advantage, and he exploits it with purest enjoyment. "So. Not the perfect initiate after all." The rank is flung across the few feet between them, emphasised insultingly.

Obi-Wan simply points at the empty space by his ear where a padawan braid would swing, reverses his wrist, and jabs a finger at the other boy's ear, where there is a similar hollow, waiting to be filled, or never.

Bruck's bleached eyebrows meet in a furious grimace. Somehow, Obi-Wan does not think he likes being out-talked by someone who cannot speak. "I may be still an initate for now," Bruck grinds out slowly, his resentment bleeding into the Force like an open wound. "But not for long. There's another tournament tomorrow. I heard the others say that Master Qui-Gon Jinn will be there. You've been playing the hero, but I'm going to show him what I can do. And then I'll be his padawan, and you'll be shipped off to the ag-corps."

Obi-Wan stares at Bruck for the longest moment, the Force addled around him.

Of all the reactions that Bruck Chun must have expected Obi-Wan to give, he did not expect Obi-Wan to fold over, shoulders shaking. For an instant, he looks as if he is sobbing; but a sudden wheezing noise fills the chamber, and Obi-Wan leans back on his pillows, racked with fits of silent laughter.

"Why're you laughing?" the white-haired boy splutters. "What are you – I mean how–"

Bruck, Qui-Gon's Padawan! Obi-Wan fights down another round of insane giggles. It is actually quite entertaining, imagining what Qui-Gon's reactions to most of Bruck's usual stunts would be. The most favourable includes the image of a flexible switch. Qui-Gon would tan Bruck's hide for his insolence. Given that most of Bruck's taunts are directed towards Obi-Wan's sense of self worth, this subject is perhaps the most ironically idiotic he could have chosen as an attempt on Obi-Wan's emotions.

Confused and out of his depth, Bruck falls back onto what he knows best: anger.

And Obi-Wan, clutching his aching sides in paroxysms of mirth, chooses this particular moment to fill the Force with a particular jesting sentiment that was most decidedly not taught to him by the revered masters of the Jedi Order.

And then Bruck's fist is clenched at the neck of Obi-Wan's medical gown, and his other poised to strike. "It looks like the lesson I taught you outside the hangar didn't sink in," Bruck snarls, jealousy emanating off him in pulses. "When I'm done with you, you're going to have more to worry about than being mute."

Obi-Wan's eyes had widened momentarily, but all of a sudden, grey shields dance into place over those variegated irises, veiling a hidden sort of glee. One hand rises, from where it was clamped around Bruck's wrist, to point over his shoulder.

Someone clears his throat behind him. A cool, calm voice bisects the silence like a cho mai 'saber strike, cleaving the very air in two with a solid blade of light.

"And just what lesson were you going to teach Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon Jinn asks pleasantly, folding his hands into the sleeves of his new cloak. His vibrant blue gaze burrows into Bruck's like blood-laced icicles. Obi-Wan finds the muscles in his cheeks pulled into an uncontrollable smile.

If Bruck's Force-signature had exuded fear before, now it positively explodes in unrestrained terror and disbelief. His hand trembles where it is still fisted loosely at Obi-Wan's throat.

Qui-Gon paces lightly over to them, his gait easy and unhindered, carrying a hidden threat. A stray thought flashes across Obi-Wan's mind that Qui-Gon's movements resemble, above all, an Asharl Panther circling in to kill.

Bruck steps back uncertainly, eyes flashing from Master to Initiate and back. All it takes is one tilt of the head from Qui-Gon for him to throw himself into a full kowtow to Obi-Wan, muttering quickly, "I should not have said those unpleasant words to you and I am deeply sorry."

Obi-Wan secretly contemplates that the noise Bruck's head makes as it bangs into the floor with each kowtow is quite refreshing.

But Qui-Gon is not done. "Is that all?" he comments airily. He might as well have been asking about the weather.

Bruck shakes his head violently, and resumes his breathless apology. "I also apologise for the incident outside the hangar." He turns on his knees to Qui-Gon, pleading in supplication."I shamed my training and am unworthy of the title of Jedi."

Qui-Gon is relentless. He stares down at the shaking boy at his feet coolly, as if Bruck were a Hutt child pouring slime over his boots. "Yes," he murmurs. "I believe you are right. You are in no manner worthy to bear the title of Padawan, and your actions shame the entire Order."

Obi-Wan begins to frown. As amusing and satisfying it is to watch Bruck give his long-awaited apology, something about this entire debacle has him feeling slightly uncomfortable. Not that he pities Bruck, but something about the manner in which the white-haired boy grovels seems wrong.

Qui-Gon's gaze flickers to meet Obi-Wan's for a moment, and his eyelids close, jaw clamping shut. Dragging seconds pass, Bruck's panicked half-sobs the only human sound except the medical sensors. Then the tall Jedi Master releases a long breath, opens his eyes, and growls shortly, "Out." The door slides open.

Bruck scampers away, doing the perfect impression of a beaten akk fleeing with its tail tucked between its hind legs.

Obi-Wan sinks further into his pillows, intimidated by the sudden silence. Qui-Gon is still facing the door, his back to the cot, and his heavy robes a feather-light weight on his broad shoulders. Obi-Wan winces as the machine by his bed announces his elevated heart rate once more.

When Qui-Gon speaks, his tone is light, jesting. "Afraid of me?" Sky-blue eyes twinkle humourously, entirely devoid of the ice that had frozen them mere minutes ago.

Obi-Wan immediately shakes his head, but turns it into a nod when Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow at him. The result is a completely unflattering mess of half-nods and half-shakes. He freezes, head held at an odd angle, when he realises how ridiculous he must look. Unconsciously, he pulls the blankets further up to his chin, appearing from all angles like a hawk-bat hatchling burrowing into snow.

Qui-Gon's mouth twitches, and laughter explodes out of him before his can do anything to stop it. And with every undignified chortle of mirth, the knot in his chest of bitterness and loss and sorrow that formed with his former padawan's betrayal loosens slightly. Qui-Gon Jinn laughs fully and wholeheartedly for the first time in eight long years.

A glance towards the cot reveals that Obi-Wan has pulled the blankets up past his nose, so that all that is visible of him are confused grey eyes and a mop of untidy brown spikes. Qui-Gon reaches over and gently pulls at the sheet until the entirety of Obi-Wan's face is visible again, and rubs at the boy's chin to stop him from chewing on his lip.

"Little one," Qui-Gon murmurs softly, "There are many things that I have to tell you, and explaining them might take a while. But it would help if you lowered your shields so we could access our bond."

Obi-Wan gives a start as he feels a presence prodding at his mental defenses. He knows by the moderate pressure on his shields that Qui-Gon could overwhelm them in half a second should he need to, but the older Jedi holds back, respecting Obi-Wan's mental privacy. He had not even realized that he had thrown up his defenses when Bruck barged in a while ago.

As Qui-Gon settles on a corner of the mattress, a furrow appears between Obi-Wan's brows as he consciously relaxes his mind, allowing the barriers to fall–

–and blinks in surprise as their bond flares to bright light between them, a solid river of thoughts and images and emotions. Obi-Wan reels in the flood of information, a hundred worlds flashing before his eyes. The current presses hard against his mind, and above all, the Force meanders through their joined consciousness, battering against his memories. His mouth opens soundlessly, and his eyes squeeze shut against the endless barrage, seeking to withdraw into a dark corner of silence.

And then a large, rough hand is warm on his brow, and a sudden presence surrounds him, diverting the flow of thoughts beside him like a rock parting water. "I'm so sorry, Obi-wan," Qui-Gon's calm voice echoes around him. "I misjudged the strength of our bond. Use me as an anchor. Focus determines reality."

Wading through decades of memories and thoughts that are not his, Obi-Wan grasps at the pure, solid star of Qui-Gon's Force-presence, gathering and focusing his mind, concentrating on the comforting steadiness of Qui-Gon above all else, anchoring himself on this island of new, yet familiar warmth. The torrent of images and emotion wavers, thins, and diminishes into a controlled current.

Obi-Wan lets out a breath that he did not realise he was holding, sucks in air greedily, and opens his eyes to find his hands fisted in Qui-Gon's tunics and his forehead covered by the Jedi master's callused hand. An odd emotion bounces across their bond towards Obi-Wan. Embarrassment that is not his own.

This is one of those rare times when Obi-Wan is glad that not a sound makes it past his lips, because he most certainly would have squeaked in horror should he have been able.

Qui-Gon's hand on his forehead slides down to his shoulder, pushing him back. It might be Obi-Wan's imagination, but the Jedi master's voice seems thicker than usual as he clears his throat. "Obi-Wan, before I formally ask you to be my padawan, I need to tell you something."

Obi-Wan nods, feeling the ventilated air cool his burning cheeks.

Qui-Gon's gaze is slightly distracted as he looks Obi-Wan in the eye. "The day before we left for Ilum, I had a…vision, of sorts." He senses the query in the Force, and a chuckle escapes him. "Well, by a vision, I mean a paltry two words. I heard a voice cry 'Yes, Master'. The nature of the vision left me in no doubt that the words were from a future padawan of mine."

The boy's glance is bolt of inquisitive cerulean.

"Obi-Wan…" Qui-Gon says carefully, knowing exactly how ravaging this revelation could be for the silent initiate, "That voice was yours."

Obi-Wan jerks back, disbelief darting across their bond like a flock of thranctills across the Coruscanti night sky, fluttering between motes of light and jagged duracrete edges of shame.

"It was," Qui-Gon presses on, his shields fully lowered, honesty glowing in every word. "And I know it seems impossible, but when you cut me out of the ice, I heard you clearly project those words across our bond. You did not speak into the air, but I heard your voice, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan is shaking his head now, tears threatening to start in his eyes. A puddle of unsure hope seeps into the Force.

"Listen." Qui-Gon searches within himself for the relevant memory, projecting the beautiful voice he had heard into Obi-Wan's mind. Obi-Wan shivers as he hears the words; he had wanted a voice that could comfort, the ability to be assertive, commanding, and humble all at once, the voice of a negotiator. The voice that he hears is all those in one; unknown, yet undeniably his. It is a voice that could break into song at any moment.

"Could you try speaking through the bond?" Qui-Gon suggests gently, folding his hand over the much smaller, shaking ones.

A breath of preparation. A whirlwind of pure energy and light masses at Obi-Wan's end of the bond, a concentration so fierce that Qui-Gon withdraws slightly, awed in spite of himself. The iridescent currents of the Force weave around them in incandescent branches, the two of them crystals in the fire, fueling its flames. Qui-Gon becomes aware of a muted melody of a duet flowing about their clasped fingers, twirling in a quickening rhythm up Obi-Wan's arms, circling his throat. The maelstrom of energy around Obi-Wan contracts, spinning ever faster and closer, clothing him in Light itself, the music sweeping up into a frantic crescendo of notes–

And frustration crashes into the Force like the shattered stones of a broken dam, the melody snapping and fading, their bond thrumming with the aftershock like a golden wire charged with the echo of a lightning storm.

Obi-Wan opens his mouth, but there is nothing but silence, the calm after muted thunder.

Qui-Gon throws all thoughts against coddling into the Force, and raises a hand to brush away the solitary tear that slides down Obi-Wan's cheek, the last crystalline note of a broken melody. "It's fine, Obi-Wan," he says quickly, trying to fill the hollow quiet. "You did well."

Obi-Wan manages a watery grin in return.

"I don't need you to speak. I would be very grateful if you would simply listen." Qui-Gon is silent for a moment. A deep centering breath. "I will not find you at fault if you choose not to accept me as your master after this newfound knowledge about my past," he says emotionlessly. He runs a hand over his suddenly tired eyes; but he must do what needs to be done. Qui-Gon will not allow any initiate to become his padawan without knowing the weight of guilt on his master's shoulders.

And a master's guilt is his padawan's, also.

Obi-Wan's expression remains one of intent attention as Qui-Gon runs through his history as a Jedi, from his Knighting to present. Speaking of Xanatos so openly is like uncovering a half-healed scar, layer by layer, each recalled detail bringing a fresh wave of agony. He knows his guilt is evident in his voice, in every self-damning word dropped plainly from his lips, in the memories he lays bare to scrutiny across their bond. There is no reason Obi-Wan should bear the burden of his master's misdeeds. The hours pass unheeded.

"–and so I opposed the will of the Force and attempted to deny our growing bond. I am a fool, and an old, bitter one at that," Qui-Gon finishes, attempting a smile but not quite succeeding.

When the last sentence, word, and syllable are done, Obi-Wan remains blinking slowly as he absorbs the last of the knowledge. Then turns to Qui-Gon and gives him a stare that passes right through him, while the bond shimmers into a path of hand-spun transparent glass, fragile in its clarity.

It would only take a word to break.

And Obi-Wan gives a small shake of his head, smiling as he sends a succession of images across their bond. With each picture, the bond swells, growing, strengthening. Qui-Gon jerks as he sees himself through Obi-Wan's eyes. This painted picture of Qui-Gon is different; flawed, certainly, but steady, constant. Xanatos is but a quickly forgotten memory, inconstant and intangible as the twilight shadows at Qui-Gon's feet.

The blue-white twilight of Coruscant Prime, the brightest star in the Coruscant system, throws a golden bar of shining luminance through the window, casting both their faces in bronze. Qui-Gon breaks the silence with a bark of mirth, reaching forward to ruffle Obi-Wan's hair, which has turned into gold-streaked ochre in the fading light of day.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi, would you assent to be my padawan?"

The silhouetted shadow of a young boy nods once, and although their shared smiles cannot be seen in the outline of sable, Master and Padawan know, for their bond sings strong between them.

"Thank you, Padawan mine. It is an honour."

The bond is forged; it is done.

(:~:)

The hemisphere of Coruscant plunges into night, the glittering stars carry a whispered message in the Force, passing from system to system faster than the turgid paths of hyperspace, a wave of luminance that sweeps across the legions of stars like a breath of wind across the silvered grass of the galaxy.

On Telos IV, dawn is a thin line of red on the horizon as a single hooded figure lowers his fur-lined hood, still lined with ice from Ilum. He collapses onto one knee on the landing pad, clutching his head, as the last frayed fronds of a long-forgotten training bond snap and wither, corroded from light years away.

The man gasps as his mind echoes with solitude. His last connection to his former master is gone. He has been replaced.

Xanatos DuCrion folds one hand into a fist on the cold duracrete as he forces himself to stand, the first bright rays of dawn striking the circled scar on his cheekbone, setting it afire with new blood.

Chapter Text

Only very rarely does the Jedi Council begin a morning with such anticipation of good cheer. Indeed, Yoda confers quietly with Master Yaddle as the morning light shortens their already small shadows, his grumbling chuckle less of a growl today and more of a self-satisfied snicker. Well, as close to a snicker as Yoda could be expected to produce. Plo Koon and Saesee Tiin banter light-heartedly on their right, joined sporadically Even Piell's short, barking laughter. The twelve red-cushioned chairs are filled one by one, their occupants greeting each other warmly.

Mace Windu settles himself comfortably into his seat, the perfect personification of the Jedi Code, all muted power and elegance as he glares penetratingly at the floor over his steepled fingers. Others may view his lack of participation in the conversation around him as an attempt to conserve the stoic and proper image of the head of the Jedi Council; but in reality, he stares at the circular flower of harmony etched into the marble floor in an effort to stop a wild smile from stretching across his cheeks. He is not completely successful.

By the Force. He is a Jedi master, second-in-command to Grand Master Yoda, but the childish hilarity bubbling up within him is unworthy of even the youngest padawan. Already, his lips are twitching uncontrollably, in anticipation of the sheer enjoyment the first meeting of the day would bring. Oh, he had been waiting for this moment for years – for Qui-Gon to throw off his burdened cloak of bitterness and guilt and serve the order with the same unrestrained joy he used to. Despite his emotionless façade, Mace Windu is happy for his old friend.

And it would be so entertaining to prove himself right after months of thinly-veiled arguments in this very chamber. Since Qui-Gon would be coming the Council with a request of his own, Mace would have the most excellent opportunity to play the generous, understanding master, all the while flinging the hidden words I told you so into that old desert djinn's face.

If he were some rich politician instead of a Jedi master, Mace Windu would probably be rubbing his hands together, cackling with unrestrained glee. A pity. He would have to settle for the Jedi equivalent – fry that ignorant gundark alive with words, and then roast him in the senior level dojo later.

"Control yourself, Master Windu," Yoda chortles as he hops up onto his seat.

"Of course, my master," Mace replies easily. "First item on the agenda?" he calls to the gathered Council.

Adi Gallia turns perceptive brown eyes to him, and says simply, "Jinn."

"Well, let's get this unpleasantness over with," Mace sighs wearily, hoping that his emotions are not too evident in his carefully blank gaze.

The most-recently promoted member of the Council stares coolly right back at him, her cream head-tresses swinging.

He turns away from her glance and towards the gilded double doors. Muahahahaha. Vapaad had its benefits. He could relish in defeating an opponent, as the Light laughs along with him. Mace hides his grin behind a contemplative hand to his chin, waiting for his victims to enter the lair.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan stares curiously up at Qui-Gon as the turbolift rockets them up the central spire of the Jedi Temple, the dawn light casting their faces in half-shadow. The walk from the Healers' wing had taken longer than expected, due to Obi-Wan's half-healed feet. Fortunately, the tall Jedi had backed him up when he adamantly refused the hover-chair the droids pressed upon him. Now, however, the stinging ache in the pads of his feet is enough to make him doubt the intelligence of his decision.

Obi-Wan shakes himself back to the present. Qui-Gon is saying something. "Obi-Wan, you do not need to participate in this Council session unless asked directly," Qui-Gon states plainly, his eyes burning a hole in the durasteel doors of the turbolift. "I shall deal with the…unpleasantness, myself."

A question floats to the surface of Obi-Wan's thoughts, and he quashes it down quickly before it can transmit across their bond. Nevertheless, Qui-Gon's chin flicks down toward him. Amusement emanates from the larger Force-presence like warm light from a glow-bulb.

"The Council is worthy of respect," Qui-Gon says, at length. "I am not required to offer more than that."

Obi-Wan nods affirmation as a computerised voice announces their arrival at the top of the spire. The doors slide open, and Obi-Wan halts mid-step as the view spreads itself out on both sides of the waiting lobby. His mouth drops open.

The whole of Coruscant seems spread out in a gently curving arc, miniscule figures of aircars and public hovercraft scattered over the shining levels like insects on silver water, the dawn light skimming across the surface in solid bars of gold. And like the half-mirrored pane of an ocean, the city-planet is seemingly bottomless; level after level it descends, deep gorges and shallower reefs clinging to obsidian towers, ethereal in their beauty and harsh in their jagged edges. Larger interstellar ships split the currents of aircraft, Nabooian Gooberfish that blot out the light of Coruscant Prime in hulking silhouettes. Some distance away, the sleek shapes of senatorial yachts gather around the Senate dome like shoals of Skekfish. It strikes Obi-wan that it is quite the apt simile; Skekfish are blind, sharp-sided and hunt in relentless groups, much like the politicians themselves.

And then a warm hand is on Obi-Wan's shoulder, and a finger under his chin, closing his slack jaw. "Focus, young one," Qui-Gon murmurs, smiling. The very same words that he first said to a crècheling Obi-Wan mere days ago.

The two of them cross the short expanse of larmalstone floor to the waiting doors, an adult Aiwha leading its hatchling in their first flight across the endless ocean of Coruscant.

(:~:)

The moment his boot comes into contact with the floor of the Council Chamber, Qui-Gon knows that the battle has already been decided. The Force is awash with humor, the twelve furled Force-signatures that make up the council shimmering with the emotion. He is half-blinded by the light streaming in through the wide windows. The smallest of frowns draws his mouth into a line. So this is their move.

But two can play this game, so Qui-Gon bows deeply at the waist, sensing Obi-Wan follow suit. Then they wait for the Council to speak.

Mace Windu is the first to break the silence. Of course. "What brings you before the Council today, Master Jinn?" he asks innocently. The effect is somewhat ruined by the glittering victory in his eyes, and the way they rake over Qui-Gon's shaven chin in amusement.

Qui-Gon acknowledges this first strike with a bow of the head. Mace, you manipulative gundark. So you want me to state what you already know. He stands firm in tradition, and declares formally, "I come before the Council to inform you, masters, that I wish to take Obi-Wan Kenobi as my padawan learner." He is treading a thin line of barest respect here – to inform, not request.

But Master Windu snaps the line as effortlessly as the gesture that accompanies his reply. "The Council will consider your appeal, Master Jinn. But before we do, I believe there remains a few answers you owe us."

A short silence. "And what may those be?" Qui-Gon inquires pleasantly, his cheeks aching with the effort of not scowling.

"Would you care to explain the sudden reversal in your stance in regards to our suggestion that you take another padawan?"

Qui-Gon's Force-presence flares slightly, but the cool blue tendrils retract an instant later. When he speaks, he is the picture of utter calm. "The Force commanded me to do so. And the Force, as we all know, always offers wise counsel." As opposed to the other particular source of authority.

The Force crackles in reprimand. Yoda frowns, his gimer stick contacting the side of his chair with a sharp crack. Apparently, he sensed Qui-Gon's silent addition to his spoken words, and his displeasure fills the very air with sparks of energy. "Test the Council, you must not, Master Jinn."

Obi-Wan stiffens slightly beside Qui-Gon.

An apologetic tone. "Yes, my master." Insufferable green troll.

But Qui-Gon's answer is insufficient to placate Yoda. The Grand master's large emerald eyes snap in irritation. "Say will of the Force this is, do you?" he growls, his already-lined brow furrowing further.

Qui-Gon nods. "Yes, I do. So you see–"

"See, we do. See, you do not," Master Yoda huffs, raising his stick to point accusingly at Qui-Gon's equally sharp gaze. His next words are softer, more sorrowful. "Blind, you are."

Qui-Gon opens his mouth to reply, but no words come. Had he not admitted this to himself? He clamps his jaw shut, seething.

"Saw great suffering in you, the Council did," Yoda continues, his voice less rough but no less reprimanding. "And so recommended that you take a padawan. And will of the Force, it was." He presses on, not giving Qui-Gon a chance to reply. "Defy only the Council, you did not. You defied the Force itself."

The Council starts, murmuring. Mace Windu shifts in his seat. He is not enjoying this quite as much as he thought he would.

Qui-Gon remains silent for the longest while, head bowed, the Force an inconstant, roiling sea around him, held back by walls of pure will. Then a drawn-out breath leaves his lips, and he meets Yoda's gaze full on. "I beg the forgiveness of the Council." The words are heavy as they fall out of him, but with each breath, he seems to straighten further, an unseen burden leaving his shoulders. "I realised this myself, on Ilum." His gaze strays to Obi-Wan, whose eyes are wide as they stare up at him, finally understanding. "Yes. I feared to take another padawan. I feared failure, and I did not trust myself or the Council." Qui-Gon bows, closing his eyes. "For that, I owe you an apology, my masters. I still have much to learn."

Throughout the confession, Obi-Wan blinks up at Qui-Gon, his mouth slightly open in awed surprise. His expression turns to mortified horror, though, when at a motion from Yoda, Qui-Gon pivots smoothly to bow to Obi-Wan. It is not the deepest of bows, but the entire idea of a master, let alone his master bowing to him is inconceivable.

"I owe you an apology as well, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon says clearly. There is no jest in his motions or his words. "I acted in a–"

Obi-Wan reaches out and touches Qui-Gon's sleeve, shaking his head once to show his understanding. As the Jedi master straightens, Obi-Wan bows in return, taking his bow far deeper than Qui-Gon's.

Then he turns back to the Council, his cheeks practically glowing scarlet in the early morning light. Qui-Gon faces forward again, but his gaze slides over to Yoda.

A flicker of a smile passes over Yoda's lined features as he watches this exchange. "Hmm," he mutters grumpily. "Resolved, this is. Speak of it no more."

Two heads incline toward the aged master.

Mace Windu leans forward, a grin of his own threatening to break his ineffectual mask. "Now that this is resolved, we can address the matter of Initiate Kenobi."

"Accept Master Jinn as your master, do you, Obi-Wan Kenobi?" Master Yoda wades into Mace's impending monologue with all the subtlety of a rambling bantha. Quite an achievement for one so physically small. Master Windu pulls up short, blinks once, and acquiesces.

Obi-Wan nods enthusiastically. He usually would have dispensed of eagerness in favour of calm poise, but he is beginning to understand why Master Qui-Gon hates Council sessions so much. He'd much rather get it over with quickly. Qui-Gon stares openly at him, confusion flitting across his beardless face. Where is that cultured young boy he met in the crèche?

"Vell, vell, I think ve have heard enough," Master Even Piell rasps, flashing his terrifying scarred grin at Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan smiles back uncertainly, not quite knowing how to respond to the tiny fearsome Jedi.

"Yes. Seen enough, we have." Yoda's gnarled voice is already growing more distant. "Approve of the match, the Council does. Begone with the two of you." But his sly, unwavering gaze suggests he sees more to their actions than he reveals.

"Thank you, Councillors," Qui-Gon murmurs, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice. As one, master and padawan bow to the circle of the Jedi Council.

And if they take their leave with undue haste, the Council pretends not to notice. A Jedi knows when to retreat.

As the doors close, Mace Windu is not the only member of the Council who makes his mirth known. The Council Chamber echoes with the unhindered chuckles of the twelve highest-ranking representatives of the Jedi Order, and Master Yoda's among the loudest.

(:~:)

It hasn't really sunk in yet for Obi-Wan that he is a padawan. Qui-Gon's padawan. He shuffles in a daze behind his master's billowing cloak, the familiar halls of the Temple blurring strangely behind the sudden moisture in his eyes. He isn't going to be shipped off to the agri-corps. He would no longer have to sit numbly in the crèche, the oldest child there by years, counting the days to his thirteenth birthday with trepidation and shame in his heart. And in Qui-Gon, there is finally a person to which Obi-Wan can speak to in images and emotions, without the need of stylus and flimsy.

And then a thought slams into his chest like a solid wall of euphoria, leaving him breathless with elation. I'm going to be a Jedi. Long years of training still await, but his future is less clouded. The ache in his feet is worse than ever – and his smile could split the sky.

Qui-Gon spares his increasingly wayward apprentice a glance, breathes a sigh, and motions at a stone bench set in an alcove. Hesitantly, Obi-Wan follows, unsure of his master's intentions.

With the solidarity of the smooth grey marble beneath them and the warm wall at their backs, Qui-Gon removes a canister of paste from within the folds of his robes and directs Obi-Wan to remove his boots. Obi-Wan does so confusedly, but arrests his motions when he acquires an inkling of what is about to happen. He shakes his head vigourously, waving a hand at the metal container that Qui-Gon carefully opens.

"Padawan." Qui-Gon's tone brooks no argument. "Your feet have yet to completely heal. The pain is distracting you from the present. Seeing as levity is already doing a marvellous job of unfocusing you, I am seeking to remove the second source of distraction."

Now blushing with embarrassment, Obi-wan removes his last stocking and wiggles his toes, wincing as he does so. Angry red lines crisscross his sole.

"And there we have proof," Qui-Gon says wearily, but not without a twinkle in his eye. "Willow root balm," he answers Obi-Wan's unspoken question. The lid opens to reveal a sharp-smelling paste. "You are not the first very young apprentice I have had to work with," Qui-Gon murmurs with a smile. "I took precautions by asking Master Avarin for this before we left the Healers' wing."

The Jedi master's fingers are surprisingly gentle as they smooth balm over the soles of Obi-Wan's feet. The head of gold-brown spikes shakes as Obi-Wan giggles silently. It tickles. Qui-Gon notices, for the first time, that he cannot see Obi-Wan's lightsaber anywhere. The boy must have hidden it in his tunics, to appear submissive before the Council. Obi-Wan has once again surprised him with his ability to think ahead.

As Qui-Gon works, he branches off into a different topic. Only a mask of control separates him from his burning curiosity being shown. He has wanted to have this conversation with the boy for quite some time. "Obi-Wan, what are your opinions on the abandonment of negotiation in favour of a more direct approach to conflict?"

Obi-Wan jerks slightly, thrown off by the abruptness of the question. Perceptive grey-blue eyes narrow slightly. He mimes writing something, and then jabs a finger accusingly at Qui-Gon's eyes. He points to the imaginary sheet of flimsy on his lap.

"Yes, my very young padawan. I read your homework assignments." Qui-Gon smiles slightly at the muddled emotions seeping across their bond. Apprehension is at he forefront. Obi-Wan is worried about the quality of his work. Qui-Gon hides a private musing that quality should be the least of Obi-Wan's worries. "I was very interested in your argument against aggression regarding the Jedi master who boarded a pirate vessel in the Mandaorian Road blockade fourteen years ago." Having finished spreading medicine Obi-Wan's left foot, he moves on to the other without preamble. "Am I right in thinking that your opinion is unchanged?"

Obi-Wan nods slowly. Qui-Gon can almost sense the cogs whirring in his head as he tries to work out the meaning of this lesson.

"So you still believe that the use of force was dangerous, then." Qui-Gon glances up to meet Obi-Wan's curious gaze. "And what if I told you that the pirates intended to torch the capital of New Mandalore after their terms were met?"

Impossibly, Obi-Wan's eyes grow even wider. Qui-Gon watches as his apprentice blinks a few times, absorbing this new piece of information, and then points at him, mouth falling open in denial.

"Yes, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon says cheerily. "I was the unnamed Jedi master in question." Seeing his padawan's face collapse in stunned horror, Qui-Gon represses a chuckle. "I will not fault you for arguing your opinion, Obi-Wan." A sly smile. "I will only encourage you to change it."

Obi-Wan gapes up at him, completely disarmed before he even knew the verbal duel had begun.

"Close that cavern of yours," his master murmurs. "It is unflattering." Obi-Wan clamps his mouth shut and folds his hands into opposite sleeves, back straightening as he assumes the perfect image of the model student. Qui-Gon's lips twitch with mirth. "Now," he says airily, "Would you again rethink your position on this matter if I told you that further to the pirates' intention to destroy the capital, they were holding a prominent politician and his family hostage on their ship?"

No response. Obi-Wan seems frozen.

"The family in question had a very small child with them," Qui-Gon continues, blasting Obi-Wan's denial into smithereens with the subtlety of a plasma gun. "This two-month old baby, Satine Kryze, would undoubtedly have joined the Force at a very early age if I had not intervened."

Obi-Wan's hands shake slightly in his voluminous sleeves. He bows his head once to his master. Contrite sorrow dances across their bond. Qui-Gon pauses for a moment before sending a wave of acceptance towards his apprentice. Obi-Wan nods his thanks.

"Do not be overly affected by this revelation, Padawan," Qui-Gon sighs. "The Archive report was simply a shortened version of the actual events, as I'm sure you remember. However, I recall it specifically states that it was a reduced version of the events, and therefore should not have been used as a source for an essay such as yours. The full report was for Council eyes, only. Master Yaddle decided that amending it would teach restraint to the younger initiates who read it." A sigh. "Focus determines reality. You could not focus on the problem the same way I did, because you were not there. Reality is very different from recorded history."

The willow root balm is concealed once more, its lid firmly secured, and hidden away in Qui-Gon's robes again, like the conversation that flowed between them. "Let us speak no more of this," he says softly. "The lesson has been learnt, yes?"

His padawan nods, averting his gaze. Qui-Gon's warm hand shakes his shoulder gently. "Do not brood over this, young one."

Obi-Wan turns back to his master in a dramatic reversal, a smirk flitting over his young features. A finger jabs at Qui-Gon's chest again. You do.

Qui-Gon is supremely unaffected. "I reserve the right to do what I wish. I am very nearly four decades your senior."

They resume their slow progress towards the crèche, Qui-Gon's hand remaining on his padawan's shoulder. Their first lesson is complete, but Obi-Wan was not the sole student.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan's box of worldly possessions is appropriately small for an initiate of the Order, following the Jedi Code against materialism. Something in Qui-Gon still jerks slightly when he glimpses the collection of trinkets and aircraft models that would not have looked out of place in a junk heap. But the manner in which Obi-Wan hugs the box to his chest is reveals its importance to him.

"Through here," Qui-Gon says, flicking a finger at a tenth-level residential corridor. The floor is inlaid with textured brown stone here, warm and homely. Qui-Gon takes a few steps, then notices his apprentice is lagging behind. A glance over his shoulder exposes the grimace across Obi-Wan's face as he navigates the uneven ground, mincing slightly on his bruised feet.

Qui-Gon dithers for a moment, analysing the pros and cons of his next actions, and decides reserve can all go to sith-spawned Nal Hutta Dark, for all he cares. Obi-Wan's mouth opens in a soundless yelp as his master hooks one hand around the back of his belt, lifts him off his feet, and relieves him of his box. Qui-Gon settles Obi-Wan's possessions comfortably on one shoulder, raises his other hand to the right height, and sets off down the corridor with his new burdens.

Obi-Wan's arms and legs flail about for a moment, then swing gently with his master's steps. He is quite glad his head is hanging upside down and the blood rushing to his face, for that gives him excuse for the scarlet shade of his cheeks. His pride is not dealing well with being hung off the back of his belt like a hatchling, his arms and legs dangling uselessly toward the patterned floor.

An explosive guffaw erupts from the other side of the corridor, and Obi-Wan turns his head, with some difficulty, to blink at the upside-down images of Siri Tachi and Bant Eerin. The two initiates nearly fall against each other with the effort of maintaining their composure, and as a result their bows to Qui-Gon are upset by their shaking shoulders.

Qui-Gon inclines his head in return, the motion setting Obi-Wan's limbs swaying again and reducing the two girls to tears of mirth. Obi-Wan feels his reputation drift away, never to be seen again. Sithspit. Force-forsaken Dark sithspit. He can never look Siri in the face again.

His master seems to be enjoying his padawan's misery just a little too much. "Pride is not the Jedi way, Obi-Wan," he says lightly.

Obi-Wan watches as his two friends disappear around the corner, their laughter still echoing in air and Force alike, and accepts his inevitable fate as Master Qui-Gon Jinn's new padawan.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon waves open the door to his quarters – their quarters – with a very frivolous use of the Force, but with both his hands occupied, it is really the only sensible choice. Obi-Wan's limbs fan out in a circle as Qui-Gon turns to place the box on a chair, swinging his apprentice with the motion. The chamber whirls in a dizzying sphere as his master places him on his feet again.

When his vision has stopped spinning, Obi-Wan blinks at his surroundings. He hadn't quite known what to expect, as his new master is not the most traditional of Jedi. As such, he is unprepared for the individuality of the rooms themselves. Two small, earth-brown couches face each other on one side of the room, divided by a simple low table of warm grey stone. A circle of white pebbles surround a navy-potted cactus at the table's centre. Twin meditation cushions sit like cream moons to one side of the couches. A wide hand-woven Gabal-wool rug covers the original bland floor, shimmering iridescent shades in the noon luminance pouring in through wide double windows, leading out onto a small light-drenched balcony. The silvered towers of Coruscant fade away to the west horizon past the polished rail. Obi-Wan turns to his right to find a larger table of Felucian wood, the worn knots and lines of growth in the grain itself giving the surface a natural glow. The small kitchen counter behind the four-chaired table is well stocked with hand-labeled containers of tea, gleaming metal and blue-painted stone. Several unfamiliar objects line the wall at the back of the counter, miscellaneous, but obviously of some memorable value to Qui-Gon.

The overall warmth of the room is lulling and comforting. It doesn't look like the lodgings of a Jedi. It looks like home.

Qui-Gon does not comment, simply raising an eyebrow at the glimmer in Obi-Wan's eyes as he turns a circle.

"Your room is the smaller one at the end of the hall," he calls quietly, heating water to make tea.

Obi-Wan clasps his box to his chest and scampers eagerly past the door to Qui-Gon's bedroom – sneaking a glance to find it practical and bare – past the small 'fresher between his master's room and his own, and enters his new room with reverence.

Hmm. Blank walls, grey bunk, durasteel desk with standard-issue lamp. Obi-Wan grins, places the box onto his desk, and sets about making the room his own.

Qui-Gon has already set the table for lunch when his padawan emerges from his lair, beaming. "Wash your hands," Qui-Gon says, not looking up from the sink. Obi-Wan's footsteps pit-pat to the 'fresher and back just as quickly.

To Qui-Gon's eternal gratification, Obi-Wan does not scrape his chair across the floor when he settles into his seat. All it takes is a motion from his master for him to engross himself in his food, digging in with gusto. Qui-Gon watches his apprentice with a wry grin. He had forgotten the bottomless pits that are most young boys' stomachs.

"Drink your tea, Obi-Wan, before you choke yourself." Qui-Gon tilts his head slightly. The reserved initiate he saw on the flight to Ilum is gone. Obi-Wan seems to have put his uninhibited trust in his master. For some reason, this makes Qui-Gon feel lighter than he has for a long time.

But the manner in which Obi-Wan gorges himself is ever so slightly disturbing.

Though Qui-Gon is glad to see that Obi-Wan automatically clears the table when they are done. In Qui-Gon's prior experience, padawans have the unfortunate requirement of needing to be house-trained, but Obi-Wan is apparently the exception.

A hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder stops him mid-motion. "Over here," Qui-Gon says quietly. He directs his padawan to kneel on one of the meditation cushions, and folds himself down opposite. Obi-Wan sits on his heels, following Qui-Gon's movements attentively.

"Lightsaber out."

The boy starts, new colour rising in his cheeks. Qui-Gon frowns at him, not understanding, but when his padawan removes his burnished 'saber hilt from a fold in his tunics, Qui-Gon smiles. And is somewhat flattered.

Obi-Wan must have spent the few precious hours between their talk in the galley and landing on Ilum modifying his 'saber designs in the ship's tiny work station. The curved metal and cap of his new 'saber echoes Qui-Gon's own lightsaber design, like a casted shadow flared with new ink.

At Qui-Gon's direction, Obi-Wan places his 'saber to the side, as does Qui-Gon with his own.

Qui-Gon reaches for the one longer lock of gold-streaked russet hair that hangs over Obi-Wan's right ear, parts the tuft into three separate strands, and begins to weave them together, a twisting pattern signifying the start of their road together as master and padawan. "The Master, the Padawan, and the Force," Qui-Gon murmurs, fingering each of three tresses. "Just as the braid does not begin with either of the three, neither does our path. The three of us walk as one. The Force binds teacher and student together; the Master follows the Force, the Padawan follows the Master, and the Force leads and serves them both. The path of a Jedi has no beginning or end, but the three walk it together."

A last winding, three lines verging into a seamless whole. A tiny purple bead slides onto the very end, above the binding. "Purple, for a lesson of courage taught from student to master," Qui-Gon chuckles. "A marker usually only earned at a much later time. You have already done well, Padawan." His fingers stroke the braid once, halting at the binding.

Courage. Obi-Wan shivers slightly as he remembers another Qui-Gon, from an age not yet come, who had raised his hand and fingered his braid in the exact same manner. Courage, he had said. For there is a long, hard, road ahead. That Qui-Gon had smiled, and faded away into the icy catacombs of Ilum.

Obi-Wan folds himself into a full kowtow, thanking not only his master before him, but the one from the uncertain future.

Qui-Gon looks at Obi-Wan strangely for a moment, but a smile flickers across his face, and he bows his head in return.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon hit a wall around sunset that afternoon when he realises to no little horror that he was supposed to go over to Tahl's quarters for dinner, and it is his turn to cook. He had lost track of the days, given his injury and his new apprentice. Obi-Wan glances up from his tea, sensing the sharp spike of panic from his master. Uncertainly – for he is not completely used to the bond, yet – he sends a wave of curiosity over to Qui-Gon.

His master rubs a hand over his face and forcibly exudes calm into their bond. "Come over here, Obi-Wan," he says, more severely than he had intended. Catching himself, he softens his voice slightly. "You see this?" Qui-Gon hefts a large, inconspicuous metal pot from the shelf.

Obi-Wan nods, brow furrowing in bewilderment.

"This is The Pot." Qui-Gon emphasises the two words carefully. "As my padawan, there are a few things you need to know about this." Obi-Wan tilts his head, but nods seriously in answer. "You do not touch The Pot," Qui-Gon commands sternly. "You do not clean The Pot. You will not take The Pot from where I leave it without prior permission from either I or Master Uvain."

The moment Tahl's name is mentioned, a flicker of amusement dances in Obi-Wan's eyes. He gazes solemnly at The Pot. He understands completely – this must be some unknown advanced Jedi ritual known only to the most honourable masters.

Feeling slightly ridiculous, Qui-Gon continues nevertheless. "Each week, either Master Uvain or I will cook dinner in The Pot and bring it over to the other's quarters, where we will then eat. As my padawan, you will now be summarily included in this weekly tradition. I expect you to show the epitome of decorum at all times."

Obi-Wan nods yet again, hands clasped together in front of him, serious, wide eyes staring at The Pot as if it is some holy artefact. Which, Qui-Gon supposes, it might as well be.

The Pot clangs as Qui-Gon places it on the stove. "Now, on to your punishment," he says matter-of-factly.

Obi-Wan jerks from his awed stupor, turning to his master in shock. The questioning pulse dies on their bond as Qui-Gon looks coolly back down at him, one hand stroking his newly beardless chin.

Ah. That.

"Now, in my day, a trespass of this magnitude would have resulted in fifteen laps around the Temple perimeter," Qui-Gon declares nonchalantly. "But given the state of your feet, we shall instead teach you another valuable lesson." Obi-Wan nods morosely, hands fiddling behind his back as he waits for his doom to be pronounced.

But is doom is not what it seems. Qui-Gon smirks. "You will consent to my teaching you how to make the dinner I planned for tonight, memorise the recipe and method, and dictate it next week, along with a report on the nutritional value and field-work advantages of every ingredient. I also expect that the next time I require the same meal, you will make it to a satisfactory standard without any aid from my person."

Obi-Wan's mouth has fallen open again. But this time, his gape turns very quickly into a smile.

(:~:)

Tahl turned up outside their door at precisely seven hours after meridian, greeting Obi-wan warmly and raising an appreciative eyebrow at Qui-Gon's clean-shaven grin. Apparently, she had not wanted Obi-Wan to walk the distance to her quarters on his still-injured feet. Dinner was a spectacular affair – Tahl had this amazing quality of holding a conversation without Obi-Wan feeling left out – and Obi-Wan had eaten far more than Qui-Gon would ever have thought he would. A half-hour later, his padawan is asleep in his chair, cheek on the table, sunk deeply into a food coma.

"He's so adorable," Tahl whispers, tracing a finger over the tiny braid that barely touches the grain of the table. "You know, it really annoyed me that when I heard that you were awake and came to see you in the infirmary, you were obviously having one of your master/padawan talks and I didn't have the heart to interfere."

Qui-Gon pauses in the act of gathering up the dishes. "Tahl."

She looks up immediately, sensing the disquiet in his voice. "What is it?"

"I sensed something on Ilum," Qui-Gon says quietly. Tahl listens with rapt attention, hands folded over his, as he efficiently explains the Dark presence he felt, and the part it might have played in the Gorgodon attack and the avalanche.

"We don't know enough to say for sure," Tahl murmurs, afterward. "You should bring this to Master Yoda." Her voice is light, but her gold-green striped eyes are disturbed.

"Tahl, I…" Qui-Gon swallows. His throat is dry. "The presence felt familiar. I fear it might have been–"

"No," Tahl's face has set. "I'm always honest towards you, Qui. You know that. So I'll be blunt now – you can't let what happened to Xan weigh you down anymore. It might have been him on Ilum, but it could equally have been nothing. Don't brood over this any further. Find your answers tomorrow."

Qui-Gon nods wearily. Tahl's frankness is one of the many reasons he values her friendship so much. "Thank you," he answers. He rubs her hand once, then begins to stand.

"It's late. I should go," Tahl says softly, so as not to wake Obi-Wan. "You should tuck in your pathetic life form."

"He needs to learn I won't coddle him," Qui-Gon jests in return.

"You'll do it anyway, so why bother living in denial?" Tahl whispers over her shoulder, hugging The Pot to her as the door hisses closed over her smile.

Qui-Gon sighs, and goes to do as he is told.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan floats on the gentle whispers of the Force, letting the current carry him every which way, cool and warm on his back. Amusement dances across his waking dreams, for the Force has never felt so comfortable. It envelops him in swathes of pure light, muffled and secure. In the strange, twisting paths between slumber and waking, Obi-Wan smiles at the lullaby eddying around him, every note a memory and binding it all together, a solid stream of light flowing out the back of his mind. The Force is positively fluffy.

The stream of light gives a gentle tug on his consciousness, pulling him further up through the many layers of his dreams. Obi-Wan frowns and burrows deeper into the fey music of the Force. It isn't fair of Master Ali-Alann to wake him so; the younger children of the crèche might need such a Force suggestion to wake, but Obi-Wan is too old for this, surely? Why, he is old enough to be a Padawan!

Padawan. A word reverberates loudly in Obi-Wan's groggy mind, the message shaking him awake as effectively as a physical hand in his hair. Awake, Obi-Wan. The path of the Jedi is not that of a sluggard. Qui-Gon's voice is tinged with amused admonishment, dancing across their bond.

Master Qui-Gon.

Obi-Wan leaps off his pallet as if it were a bed of searing coals, flinging a glance at his chrono. It is early. Very early. His surroundings freeze him on the spot for a moment; the blank walls covered by a few drawings, his gear piled by the small desk, starship models floating, suspended, from the ceiling. This is not the familiar warmth of the crèche; this is Obi-Wan's new room. Somehow, he had thought he would wake to the simultaneous yawns of his three roommates, to stumble out into the playroom and form up in an orderly line behind Ali-Alann.

The door slides open with a hiss, and a figure appears, of cream tunics, brown cloak, and stubbly grin. Qui-Gon Jinn tilts his head as he says wryly, "Ah, my very young padawan. I thought I would have to resort to actually dragging you out of your blankets by your ankle, but apparently that action is now unnecessary."

Obi-Wan glances at the window, where the slightest rim of scarlet over the reflected horizon in the towers below indicates the first foothold of daybreak. Coruscant is a refection of the indigo arch above, dotted with a few solitary stars, thrumming with a never-ending energy, but the patches of dark durasteel far outshine the lonely lights of those so early arisen.

Seemingly reading Obi-Wan's thoughts, Qui-Gon levitates a blanket over to him. "Meditation calms the mind and allows you to centre before whatever trials the day might bring." He turns back into the hallway. "You would do well to make it a habit."

Pulling on the blanket over his rumpled sleep clothes, Obi-Wan fights back a yawn and follows his master. He dearly hopes that Qui-Gon is joking; waking every day at the sixth hour seems rather extreme. It is difficult enough keeping his eyes open now; Obi-Wan does not want to imagine continuing this process every morning for the next decade and a half.

But as they face each other in meditation, weariness drops off their limbs, like the many-layered silk of the sable sky peeling back from the dawn flames, diamond stars fading as the woven arch above fades from indigo to cobalt, azure to cerulean.

(:~:)

Having sent Obi-Wan off to his morning classes, Qui-Gon heads towards a single, solitary chamber set on its own separate tower, his strides calm and purposeful. No Jedi visited the inner sanctum of the most respected member of the Order without a careful intent. If Qui-Gon should linger in his footsteps, he is sure to receive a short stick strike across the shins for his lack of focus.

As always, the door opens without need for his touch, and the Force within the chamber is expectant. One could never expect to be able to drop in on this particular room's occupant. The slatted windows throw thin bars of light motes across the dusty air, giving scant illumination to the grimy floor and the green gremlin sat there.

Master Yoda waves him onto the meditation cushion opposite with nary a spoken word, preferring to grunt humorously instead. Qui-Gon folds his tall frame onto the extremely undersized circular pad to wait.

And wait…

Yoda busies himself with tea leaves and two small, uneven clay cups, the earthy scent of Yarba tea crumbling between his gnarled fingers. After an indeterminable amount of time, the ancient Jedi master pours himself a cup of warm tea – pointedly ignoring the dry one in front of Qui-Gon – and growls pleasantly, "Questions you have, Master Jinn?"

Qui-Gon swallows past his dry mouth before he answers. The ridged edge of the too-small meditation cushion has long since pressed numb lines into his shins. "No," he replies. "I came to inform."

A throaty cackle explodes over the scent of Yarba tea. "Come to inform, have you? What of? Lived longer than I, you have?"

Impatience boils just under the surface of Qui-Gon's reserve. He wonders whether Yoda keeps his rooms in semi-darkness and provides such uncomfortable furniture simply for the sake of unbalancing his visitors. Somehow, Qui-Gon is not surprised. But how should I respond? "I apologise, master," he relents. "I meant no insult."

Yoda spears him with a sharp green gaze before harrumphing good-naturedly and reaching for Qui-Gon's empty cup. "Good," he mutters as tea darkens the white clay. "Earned this, you have."

Qui-Gon accepts the tea with a gracious nod and takes a polite sip. He tries not to grimace. Yarba tea is about as far from his favourite, Sapir, as tea varieties get. "I sensed a disturbance on Ilum," he ventures, gagging slightly on the muddy taste of the liquid.

Yoda seems to derive infinite enjoyment from Qui-Gon's suffering, but he waves at him to continue.

In as few words as possible, Qui-Gon relates the events on Ilum, the clues toward sabotage and the shadowed presence he sensed moments before being buried. When he begins to describe the particular Force-signature, though, he pauses, unsure.

"Familiar, this presence was to you." Yoda apparently does not need Qui-Gon to explain further. The aged master displays his usual knack for knowing the other's thoughts. "Thought you recognised him, hmm?"

Him. Xana–

Qui-Gon breaks off the thought violently. "I do not know, master," he says carefully.

Yoda's next words fill Qui-Gon with shock. "Knew about this, I did," he sighs, tracing a pattern in his white cup with a clawed finger. "Ilum had dark secrets, the council knew. And for that reason, send you we did."

It takes two deep, centering breaths for Qui-Gon to bring himself back under control, and unclench his hands from around his tea cup. "Am I to understand," he begins slowly, softly, "That you sent a group of defenceless younglings to Ilum knowing full well that there was a threat on the surface?" His voice hangs taut between them.

Yoda waves Qui-Gon's fury aside as easily as the pale steam from the pot of tea. "Defenceless, they were not. Had you to protect them, they did."

"They were–" Qui-Gon forcibly halts his words, clenching his jaw. Something has just occurred to him. "This was about Obi-Wan, wasn't it." It is not a question.

A gravelly cough. "Will of the Force, it was."

"You gambled with the lives of five other younglings so I would take him as my padawan." He is hanging precariously off the edge of respect now. His hands are fisted on his knees.

"Enough," Yoda growls. That one word is sufficient to bring the weight of respect and authority down on the air, constricting the Force with its gravity. "Enough. Uncertain, the future is. Your former padawan, this dark presence may be. But clouded your perception is."

Qui-Gon dips his head into a bow. "My apologies, Master Yoda."

A hint of a chuckle. Out of place, but a welcome relief. "Hmmph. When news we have, talk of this, we shall."

Recognising the dismissal, Qui-Gon forces his stiff limbs into movement, standing and bowing deeply to the Grand Master. "Thank you for your counsel."

Qui-Gon is at the door when Yoda's parting words catch him like a strike to the heart. "Train your padawan well, Master Jinn," Yoda rasps. There is no trace of humour in his tone. "Save you, I cannot, if both your padawans Fall."

Words rise in Qui-Gon's throat, clawing for release. But his voice is quiet as the door begins to close. "I will, master," he answers, hoping that his uncertainty will not show in his voice.

(:~:)

By the time he reaches the Healers' Wing, Qui-Gon's aura is terrifying enough to send initates and young padawans alike scurrying out of his way like frightened hatchlings. He finds Avarin bent over an examination of some sort, his mane of silver-tipped sable hair tied back.

"Avarin." Qui-Gon greets him shortly.

The master healer does not reply immediately, his eyes flicking towards his visitor. "A very good morning you too," he mutters, raising an eyebrow at the annoyed tic that beats at the corner of his friend's temple. "You need a headache-reliever? You've paid a visit to the old troll again, haven't you."

"Yes." Qui-Gon is getting quite weary of being read so well. "And no, I do not require treatment. I came for– What are you doing?"

"My job," Avarin returns carelessly, lifting another instrument. "But to appease your sympathy for pathetic life forms, this surgery is performed under sedation."

Qui-Gon stares at him incredulously, then down at the soggy mass of fur on the operating table. "It's a puppy," he states. "You're operating on a puppy."

"I'd have thought you would congratulate me on not being the heartless goblin you always said I was," Avarin retorts genially. "The padawan who brought me this wandering little bundle of joy was extremely serious in his desire to see it looked after."

Qui-Gon shakes his head. "I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in my beliefs."

Avarin straightens and removes his gloves, turning to the sink. "Naturally you wouldn't be, seeing as that padawan was yours."

A pause. "What."

A smirk. "Apparently, Obi-Wan was exempted from this morning's training exercises due to the condition of his feet. While the rest of his group ran laps around the temple perimeter, he was delegated the task of timekeeping by the back entrance. He found this little creature cowering by the gardens, and came immediately to me afterwards."

Qui-Gon returns Avarin's stare coolly. "Testimony to my good teaching."

Avarin snorts. "You've only been his master for a day."

"Proving the speed with which I influence the younger generation."

Unfortunately, Avarin is far too attuned to snark. "I have work to do," he sighs. "Did you cross the Temple simply to annoy me?"

The atmosphere sobers at once. When Qui-Gon speaks, all the jest is gone from his voice. "Obi-Wan."

"Ah. Perhaps you should come with me." Avarin heads towards his office, his dark harlequin tunic vibrant in a sea of healers' white. "Here," he murmurs, sliding his fingers over the surface of a datapad, reversing it and handing it to Qui-Gon. "This is his medical file from when he entered the Temple to present."

Qui-Gon's features are cast in aquiline ridges as the green light of the datapad pours between his fingers. Avarin watches as Qui-Gon's eyes widen, confusion flickering over his usually focused expression. "Avarin," he says slowly, "Does this mean…"

"As unbelievable as it is, yes." Avarin's fiercely intelligent eyes narrow. "There is nothing physically wrong with Obi-Wan. There is no abnormality in his throat, his tongue, his vocal cords, or the nerves from his cortex. And yet he cannot speak. The crèche master in charge of him when he was a toddler first contacted me when he noticed that when Obi-Wan cried, he was silent."

"Then what could possibly cause this?"

"The Force." Avarin shakes his head. "I know it seems impossible, but the Force has gagged Obi-Wan, from a certain point of view. A physical limitation would allow him to speak through a Force-connection, but this gag might prevent him from doing even that. Perhaps Obi-Wan must wait until the appointed time to vocalise."

"I think I've heard him speak," Qui-Gon says numbly.

"What?" Avarin's gaze turns sharp. "When?"

"On Ilum, when our bond was forged. I do not think he said it out loud. I heard him all the same." He does not attempt to keep the wonder from his voice. "However, when we returned, he could not replicate this feat."

"I cannot explain that." Avarin settles into his chair and plants his boots on the desk, folding arms. "I like to think that Obi-Wan has such a beautiful voice that it must be kept hidden, revealed only in the most precious moments, like the forging of a bond."

"I can't disagree with that." Obi-Wan's voice was perfect. A short silence, in which Qui-Gon lowers himself on the chair opposite and rubs at his face.

Avarin looks at the tall Jedi master over the tops of his boots, noting the small smile on his face. "What did he say?"

Qui-Gon cannot help giving a slight chuckle. "Yes, Master," he murmurs. "He said 'Yes, Master.'"

Avarin does not say anything more. He respects his friend's privacy, and keeps this to himself.

(:~:)

The morning's classes had been…interesting, for want of a better word. Garen and Reeft had piled onto him in a tackling hug while Bant glowed happily beside them. Garen had then proceeded to crow his jubilation to the heavens, promptly earning him a smack to the ear from the irate Jedi Master leading the group out into the Temple perimeter.

And then Obi-Wan had found a puppy.

Now, as he and his friends pile into one of the packed eating halls for lunch, he wonders after it. Master Avarin had seemed serious enough when he took the pup off his hands.

"Hey, Obi-Wan," Quinlan jests from the other side of the table. "What's eating you?"

Obi-Wan snaps back to the present to find Garen, Reeft, Bant and Quinlan staring at him. He quickly shakes his head and shrugs, placing a goofy grin on his face. Laughter explodes around him, and all five turn back to their food.

"He's worrying over that mutt he found outside," a new voice breaks in. Siri Tachi slides into the space next to Garen, placing her tray on the table. "He probably wants to cuddle it or something. Carry it like Master Jinn carried him, by the scruff of his neck down the hallway like some disobedient hatchling."

By the time she is finished, Obi-Wan's ears are burning. Reeft tries to hide his chuckles, and Bant elbows him in the gut. Garen is already glaring at Siri beside him, who nonchalantly spears at her tuber mash. An awkward silence descends. Obi-Wan picks at his food; his appetite is gone.

Surprisingly, it is Quinlan who breaks the silence. "Hey, did you all hear about Bruck?" he asks quietly.

Obi-Wan's gaze snaps to Quinlan. Perhaps the Kiffar Jedi is helping him because of what happened on the transport to Ilum. Either way, there is no denying Obi-Wan is grateful.

"I heard the Council's keeping him in the Temple for the time being," Bant says eagerly. "Shouldn't he be sent off to the Ag-corps by now, though?"

"I don't know," Reeft mumbles through a mouthful of nerf. "They said something about 'monitoring his progress' or something like that."

"They're keeping him imprisoned," Siri cuts in, flicking her blonde hair out of her eyes. "They can't risk sending him off to the Agri-corps with that temper of his."

"Yeah," Garen mutters darkly. "They're not keeping him here because he can find a master. He can't. They're watching him. His attitude – it's just the thing which would cause him to Turn later on."

"Garen!" Bant hisses, swatting him on the arm.

"It's true!" Garen hisses back. "It's just as well that he couldn't find a master. All the worthless Jedi who turn Dark have–"

A rustle, as Obi-Wan pushes his piece of flimsy to the centre of the table. Five heads turn to him for a moment, and then bend over the writing in unison.

"What do you mean by 'Do not mock those who Turn, but grieve for them and their loved ones'?" Quinlan mutters in confusion. "Where did you get that idea from? Jedi don't have families."

Blushing slightly, Obi-Wan reaches for his flimsy, but a larger, adult hand folds over the piece of acrylic. The six of them snap to attention as Qui-Gon Jinn stares down at them emotionlessly.

"Master Jinn," Siri squeaks.

"Padawan, meet me in the level eight west corner dojo in half an hour," Qui-Gon says. Obi-Wan nods acknowledgement, and notices how his flimsy slips into his master's pocket as he strides away.

Obi-Wan's classmates seem to take a collective breath of relief as Qui-Gon slips into the crowd. "Your master's very intimidating, Obi," Garen mutters.

Obi-Wan shakes his head. Master Qui-Gon is many things, but intimidating is not one of them. He doesn't try to explain this, though; he has an inkling that only he understands this.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon meanders his way down to the training salles, fingering the flimsy in his sleeve. He hadn't meant to take his padawan's voice like that; but he had to see what Obi-Wan wrote, for himself. When Qui-Gon heard Vos read out Obi-Wan's words, he nearly did a double take. Do not mock those who Turn, but grieve for them and their loved ones. It spoke of maturity beyond Obi-Wan's years, and a deeper understanding of his master's emotions than Qui-Gon originally thought. A warm sensation uncurls in his stomach; it isn't altogether unpleasant, but very, very confusing.

So confusing that Qui-Gon does not see the threat coming until it is almost upon him.

"Master Dooku," he murmurs respectfully, bowing to his former master. Of all the places to run into him!

"Qui-Gon." Dooku's cultured tones are a slippery and unpredictable as a snake. "May I introduce you to my padawan, Huei Tori? But I believe you've already met."

Qui-Gon hides his surprise behind a mask of decorum and looks past Dooku to the shorter figure of Huei Tori. He had not noticed the padawan at first, as the Nautolan boy had been standing a foot to the left and two steps back from his master's position, in the perfect, humbled place of the Jedi Padawan.

This irks Qui-Gon to no end.

"Master Jinn," Huei states, stepping forward sharply and bowing low. "I am glad to see you well, after the mission to Ilum."

"Padawan Tori." Qui-Gon keeps his voice carefully, delicately neutral. He has to tread cautiously here. "I understand I have to you thank for aiding my padawan and I off-planet."

"Nonsense," Dooku cuts in, his voice a blade of silk. "He merely helped along with the other five younglings."

Huei Tori pauses, glancing at his master, then defers to yet another bow. "My master is right," he says quietly. "But I am grateful for your remembrance, Master Jinn."

"Your padawan is trained well," Qui-Gon comments. So he obeys your every command. Interesting. He allows curiosity to seep into his tone. "But I thought you were not going to take another padawan."

Dooku stares right back at him, raising an eyebrow. And a Makashi strike, right to the heart. "Neither were you."

"I concede your point," Qui-Gon nods, the barest of bows. "If you will excuse me, I have an appointment in the salles." He makes to sweep past.

"You must bring your padawan over to my apartments," Dooku says. "I would very much like the pleasure of meeting him. I have heard much already."

"Perhaps sometime in the future," Qui-Gon replies ambiguously, turning back into his worn path to the dojo. His mind analyses the information not without worry. Padawan Tori is Dooku's pawn – nothing else. Dooku had 'heard much already', meaning that Tori is Dooku's eyes and ears in the temple. Qui-Gon sighs. He would have to warn Obi-Wan against the Nautolan padawan.

(:~:)

Kit Fisto is already warming up when Qui-Gon enters the dojo. The tall Nautolan Knight flickers from movement to movement like a leaf in the eddying currents of a silvered river, his harlequin blade a paradox of control and untamed violence. Unpredictable and yet smooth, his 'saber flows on those invisible rapids of air, seeming to pause needlessly in whorls of iridescent light, only to dart in wild slashes around unseen obstacles, like the river boulders looming randomly out of the rushing tide. Kit Fisto's ever-present smile flashes white through the haze of green, the whispered dance of water over pebbles roaring into a waterfall, the frenzied hum of the lightsaber rising in a crescendo. The solitary leaf turns into an emerald wave, a roiling maelstrom straining against its barriers – but it is controlled. Just.

Shii-Cho is the way of the Sarlacc. Only semi-sentient, but a fearsome predator that only emerges to defend itself. The harlequin 'saber retracts into its hilt, hidden, just as the tentacles of the Sarlacc withdraw under sand, seemingly powerless once more. The flowing water is gone, dried up; but it only takes a drop of rain on the dry desert for Sarlacc to emerge and light to dance forth again from the twin crystals within.

Kit Fisto straightens out of his bow, form and velocity completed. His smile blazes forth like the unrelenting sun.

"Knight Fisto," Qui-Gon calls by way of greeting. "Your Falling Water kata is refined as always."

"I cling stubbornly to the old ways," Kit chuckles, humour lacing his accented voice. "But it could be argued that Shii-Cho adapts far too much to ever be considered old." He pauses. "And could we dispense with the formalities? Knight Fisto and all that. I was only knighted recently. You knew my master well enough." His head-tresses twist with sorrow.

"Master Ekun-Dayo is thought of often," Qui-Gon says gently. "But the Force welcomed him. Kit it is, then."

"Thank you, Master Jinn." Kit replies, equally as softly. Then a grin lightens his features, and his long head-tresses sway gently as he tilts his head at the entrance. "Ah, and here we have your shadow."

Obi-Wan's head emerges from one side of the entrance, his ears red with embarrassment. He trots quickly to Qui-Gon's side, bowing deeply to Kit, eyes wide with awe above scarlet cheeks.

With a laugh, Kit returns the greeting. "It is good to see your padawan has made me the subject of hero-worship," he jests, one warm, sable eye winking impishly at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan's face takes on the colour of barely-ripe muja.

"Control, padawan," Qui-Gon murmurs blandly, hiding a smirk of his own. "You will learn nothing by gaping. Kit, allow me to introduce my padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi." He winces internally. He had hoped to speak with Kit about Obi-Wan's inability to speak before his padawan's arrival. The encounter with Dooku had thrown off his plans.

Qui-Gon observes as Kit bows jauntily back at Obi-Wan, and sallies on nonetheless. "I asked Knight Fisto to join us today, as he is widely believed to be the forefront prodigy in Shii-Cho." He turns towards Kit, raising a cool eyebrow. There you are, narcissist. "He has very kindly agreed to aid you in refining your basic lightsaber velocities and katas, Obi-Wan."

"Don't bother with calling me Knight and all that." Kit waves an ineffectual hand, his smirk widening impossibly. "It makes me feel old. Your master's the old dodderer – you can be as formal with him as you want. But call me Kit."

Despite the Nautolan Knight's obvious lack of knowledge about his condition, Obi-Wan cannot help a tiny grin from spreading on his lips when he hears Kit's title for Qui-Gon.

Qui-Gon's voice drops dangerously. "This old dodderer will later be participating in a example duel of Ataru against Shii-Cho, facing a certain very young Knight," he counters airily.

"Yes, Master Jinn," Kit replies nonchalantly. "As they always say, out with the old and in with the new."

Obi-Wan's gaze has long since changed from embarrassed to merry. It does not escape him that his master shoots Kit a glare as the snap-hiss of the Knight's lightsaber signals the beginning of the lesson.

Qui-Gon settles into a meditative stillness as he watches Kit demonstrate then run Obi-Wan through the ten forms of Shii-Cho, from the most basic to the most advanced. At first, Obi-Wan's movements are precise, smooth, but as they advance to the more difficult katas, his 'saber handle glistens with sweat, his feet slowing in exhaustion. But throughout it all, his lips are pressed into a white line of concentration, fierce focus lending his young eyes a glittering intensity. The Force whirls in a tight vortex around him, cascading off his lightsaber and scattering in bright droplets of liquid sapphire.

When Obi-Wan finally slows to a stop, hands pressed to knees as he bends over, breathing hard, Kit gives him a short word of approval and pushes him into first meditation position, telling him to rest. Obi-Wan curls into a ball on the marked floor, seeking to center and calm his racing heart. He does not notice Kit moving over to Qui-Gon, a serious expression on his usually easy features.

"You've noticed," Qui-Gon murmurs quietly, clamping down on the bond so that his padawan will not hear or sense their conversation. It is unlikely Obi-Wan can hear anything over the roar of his blood and the Force, anyway.

Kit collapses in a gangly heap on the bench beside Qui-Gon, using the Force to summon a water bottle. "He can't speak," Kit says softly. His tone is a strange conglomeration of emotion. It is so unlike his usual voice that Qui-Gon spares the Knight a quick, searching glance.

Knowing that Kit is still waiting for an answer, Qui-Gon nods slowly. "Yes. But he does not let it define him." He turns back to where his padawan has flipped himself into and unsteady and exhausted handstand, stretching the muscles in his back.

Smooth black eyes fixed on Obi-Wan as well, Kit takes a long swig of water and places the canteen by boots. When he speaks, it is not with pity, or horror, or even veiled sorrow. It is with the same awe that Obi-Wan offered him before that Kit speaks of him now. "He embodies every value the Jedi strive to become. And more. You are fortunate to have him."

Qui-Gon sighs. "He still has much to learn. But yes. I do not deserve him." The faintest of smiles flits across his face.

Kit grins, flipping his 'saber hilt in his hand. "None would. Even if he were apprenticed to Master Dooku."

The words strike an unexpected chord within Qui-Gon. Kit turns toward him, noticing the sudden change in the Force. Qui-Gon rubs a hand over his face, and considers his options. "Kit," he begins, "Are you familiar with most Nautolan Jedi?"

One webbed finger taps a chin. "Yes," Kit mutters, contemplative. "There are not as many Nautolan Jedi as I would like. But fewer numbers mean I know most, if not all of them."

"What can you tell me of Huei Tori?"

The Nautolan Knight stiffens, his 'saber hilt flipping in mid-air to land solidly in his palm. "He is… different," Kit confides slowly, searching for the right words. "Forgive my forwardness, but I was not pleased when Dooku chose Huei as his padawan. Huei has always been serious, but not in a good way. Let me explain." He gestures at Obi-Wan, who has fallen into some of his newly-learned stances, testing his balance. "Obi-Wan is serious in his own way," Kit says, in that quiet way that Qui-Gon knows means he is troubled. "But Huei… Huei is a void."

"I know what you mean," Qui-Gon says, rubbing at the half-grown bristles on his chin. "I tried to read him, but I sensed… nothing."

"I trained him once when he was still an initiate, and I a padawan," Kit says, and edge to his voice. "In terms of form, he was excellent. But there was no enjoyment, emotion, or… anything."

"As good Sentinel material as I've ever seen," Qui-Gon mutters darkly.

"I had hoped he would find a master who would teach him that the Jedi Code des not forbid emotion, not exactly," Kit growls under his breath. "The Code advocates control of emotion, but not its eradication. Master Dooku will either perfect Huei, or..."

"I understand." Qui-Gon frowns sharply. "This is troubling news. Control of emotion is one thing, but should Huei truly be empty…"

"Huei would be controlled by others. A puppet," Kit narrows his wide eyes, giving his features a fearsome, predatory air. "You see my reasons for concern."

Qui-Gon nods agreement. "We will have to wait and see."

Kit taps his 'saber hilt, lost in thought, and then suddenly brightens. "No matter," he says lightly. "The council will not stand by and watch one of its young members fall like so."

"I'm not inclined to put that much trust in the Council," Qui-Gon growls. Look what they did for Xanatos. "Ataru it is," he calls to his padawan, watching the grin light up Obi-Wan's face. "It is a much more elegant form than Shii-Cho," Qui-Gon jests at the Knight beside him.

"Shall we let your padawan choose?" Kit retorts, sitting back to watch. His grin returns at Obi-Wan's unbridled joy at being taught by his master seeps into the Force around them.

They look like father and son, Kit muses as sapphire blade meets harlequin hum. But he keeps his observation to himself. Jedi do not have families, only bonds. The strength of the bond is another matter entirely.

Obi-Wan dances around his master's lightsaber, his own humming blade a calming arc around his feet. Qui-Gon's focused delight explodes across the bond at him, and Obi-Wan echoes it with his own.

(:~:)

The Council is surprisingly quick about their business, as it is nigh on dusk and although the matter at hand is classified 'Jinn plus padawan', it is still Jinn. So Mace Windu is cutting but brief.

"We're sending you on a mission."

Qui-Gon steadies Obi-Wan, who is swaying imperceptibly from exhaustion and delirium, having been drunk on the Force for two hours straight. "This soon?" he counters.

"Alas, you are indispensible in the field of diplomacy," Mace says, dispensing with his usual stoic mask in favour of sass.

Qui-Gon wonders if his friend has been talking to Avarin. The sarcasm certainly sounds like his. "What," he growls shortly. Concentrate, Obi-Wan, he sends into the bond. Qui-Gon only receives a muted thrum in response.

It is credit to how weary the Korun master must be, after a long day in Council meetings, that he plunges into the mission briefing without any trace of snark. "Naboo is currently undergoing senatorial elections. The Queen has expressed a desire for Jedi presence, as there is some unrest regarding the two senatorial candidates, Governor Palpatine and Governor Naberrie. As this is a simple peacekeeping mission, your expertise should be more than sufficient to cover any situations that might arise."

"A good place to learn, Naboo is, for your padawan," Yoda interjects, staring at Obi-Wan perceptively. Qui-Gon is somewhat relieved when his apprentice proves awake enough to bow to the aged master in acknowledgment.

"You will find transport waiting for you in the South Hangar tomorrow morning," Plo Koon says, his eyes wrinkling with a smile behind his goggled visual gear. "And Master Jinn… perhaps you should not work your padawan so hard in the first week of his apprenticeship." One clawed hand motions at where Obi-Wan sways on a happy daze, excitement for his first mission and exhaustion from training warring within him.

"Of course," Qui-Gon murmurs. "Masters." He nudges Obi-Wan to bow with him, and turns to leave. His padawan appears to stride normally, but only Qui-Gon's hand on his shoulder prevents him from stooping in weariness.

As the turbolift plunges down towards the residential levels, Qui-Gon breathes a sigh and turns to the boy grinning in stupor. "Obi-Wan," he chides gently, "A Jedi should never overwork himself until he cannot form a semblance of attention."

Obi-Wan nods, mouth opening wide in a yawn. Qui-Gon resorts to searching the bond for an answer, and finds nervous excitement for tomorrow, not just for the new mission, but something else, something more personal. Qui-Gon starts as he counts the days; he had nearly forgotten. Tomorrow is Obi-Wan's thirteenth birthday. Instinctively, he clamps down on the emotions running through his mind. It would not do for his padawan to be overly hyperactive tomorrow.

Back at their apartments, Obi-Wan barely manages to bolt down dinner before stumbling messily into the 'fresher and then into bed. In the heavy, calming silence before slumber, he pauses, supposing he should work on an assignment or two. But a small smile flicks over his lips. Tomorrow is his first mission, and his birthday to boot. He should reward himself some, should he not? Obi-Wan giggles within his own mind, wondering at how he can imagine his voice clearly now, instead of the hazy impressions he had before Ilum. Today had been awesome! Kit's Shii-Cho was so much better than his and his grin so electrifying, and Ataru so releasing. Master Qui-Gon's praise had made his stomach glow from within. Not literally, of course, but he had felt really warm after that. He wonders what Master Qui-Gon would get him for his birthday…

Qui-Gon quietly slides open the door to his padawan's bedroom, to find Obi-Wan sprawled happily over his pallet, a wild smile gracing his young features. Qui-Gon can only guess the reason behind his apprentice's grin, and laughing silently to himself, he closes the door. Crossing to his own room, he reaches deep into a drawer and brings out something smooth, dark, and solid. He has not felt the worn texture of this trinket for a long time; but as he brings it into the light of a nearby lamp, the glowing rays of luminance strike the scarlet-banded stone crosswise, and warmth flares where his fingers touch its surface.

A stray thought wonders why he did not give the stone to Feemor or Xanatos; and another inkling muses that perhaps he was selfish, in a sense. The stone holds a treasured memory of his childhood; he had found it while on a training mission with Tahl.

So why am I giving it to Obi-Wan?

But as the Force whirls in a vergence around the river stone in his hand, Qui-Gon smiles and laughs at his own confusion. The Force reverberates in the stone, singing faintly, thrumming though his bones. And if Qui-Gon can hear a whispered song, then Obi-Wan would hear a symphony.

Qui-Gon finds himself ironically expectant of what tomorrow would bring. If he isn't careful, he would be the one kept awake in excitement. It almost makes him feel young again.

As Qui-Gon settles into a light slumber, the silvered rays of starlight cascade through the crystalline window in a waterfall of liquid white, and the river stone scatters the rays in fetters of iridescent colours over the chamber walls, each mote of light a note in a symphony that only one can hear.

Chapter Text

The south hangar of the Jedi Temple is never quite still; even in the dead hours of night, ships and smaller craft still drift into its waiting, lulling embrace, like hatchlings drawn to a common nest. In the silence of the hours just after midnight, Coruscant thrives on in the smoky rivers and undying lights of the city-planet, and the hangar is still astir, like the waters of a tidal maelstrom swelling at its lowest speed, not calm, exactly, but turgid and muted. Solitary Knights and a few lagging Master/Padawan pairs tumble, weary, down ramps and out pressurised doors, returning from mission, deliberation, battle and war, each as close and as far from Coruscant as mind and body. They are welcomed only by the Force, which echoes with welcome at their coming home.

Dawn rises over the textured Coruscanti horizon like variegated flames, sweeping through the forest of durasteel like wildfire, and as its bright bar of luminance sweeps across the entrance, the hangar itself seems to stir, like a hive about to swarm. The Force seems to suck in a breath, restless. The smell of engine oil percolates the air, a sharp scent of adventure, danger, bringing with it the unmistakable taint of hyperspace. Of a sudden, sentients converge upon the duracrete ground and its many gleaming spacecraft, engineers, deckhands, pilots. Boots, metal soles, nerfhide; shouts and clattering of crates and equipment, laughter and greetings in a hundred languages. Every rank from captain to cook, officer to cabin boy, and every level of Jedi from master to initiate. And with each specimen of bio-matter that sucks in the increasingly heated air of the hangar itself, droids pour in by the dozen. Astromechs, medi-droids, old etiquette units tottering unsteadily on clunky legs, pit-droids and science droids, maintenance, engineering, entertaining; The cultured tones of lightsaber droid Master Huyang, who waxes eloquent to some pitiable padawan about fried-wire circuits in a long-forgotten lightsaber. Shrill beeps and mechanised voices join the fray, melding into a battleground of broken noise.

Obi-Wan dances gently through this cacophony, his Force-signature a solitary star of coalesced silence among a whirling galaxy of chaotic sound, and he smiles to himself. What a way to make him feel special on his life-day. Here, he is not only the eye of the tempest, or a still drop in a thunderstorm; he is a perfect moment of calm in this turmoil that is rigorously maintained, ordered chaos of the morning cavalcade in the south hangar of the Jedi Temple. Obi-Wan is the centre of the galaxy.

Qui-Gon glances back at Obi-Wan he wades through the currents of droids and sentients, seeking to anchor his apprentice in his solid presence – only to find that he is not needed. Rather, Qui-Gon finds himself releasing his irritation, focusing on the bond above all else in the uneven, capricious tide of the Force swelling in this contained battlefield. And in an amusing strike of irony, Qui-Gon realises he is using Obi-Wan as an anchor, and not vice versa. He withdraws slightly behind shields of steel to save face.

Despite himself, Obi-Wan grins in delight.

His cloak swings heavily around his ankles, a wave of thick earthen fabric that flows from his shoulders to glide smoothly an inch off the ground, like a pennant of glory dancing in the wind of his passage. The cloak is new, procured straight from the quartermaster mere minutes previous; and with each stride Obi-Wan takes, it sways in a majestic billow of voluminous sleeves, hood, and well-sewn but rough cloth. With his 'saber glinting against his hip, boots rubbed to a dull shine, tabards and sash pressed to pristine glow, and braid swinging in an echo of his cloak's movement, Obi-Wan knows looks the very image of a Jedi padawan.

One just over five foot tall, but a Jedi nonetheless.

Obi-Wan glances beside him, and his stomach twists with pleasure as he realises he appears almost exactly like his master. Qui-Gon's cloak is more worn, travel-stained in places, its edges frayed; but the Jedi master does not so much wear the cloak as present it as a testament to his rank as a veteran of the field, evident in the easy, familiar way it sweeps over his broad shoulders, swaying elegantly around his scratched boots, a constant, unchanging shadow. While Obi-Wan's cloak marks him as a Padawan, nothing more, Qui-Gon's cloak somehow embodies his grace, quiet power, and years of knowledge in the Force. And there is something about the way it twirls in the early morning air that suggests a slightest hint of maverick.

Master and Padawan. Together, they make a formidable pair.

(:~:)

The Dressalian pilot who stands beside the boarding ramp of the private Republic craft pauses momentarily as he watches his two passengers approach, his mouth dropping open slightly at the sheer swagger emanating from the pair. He has ferried Jedi to all reaches of the galaxy, but never two who looked quite like these.

"Good morning, Master Jedi," the pilot manages, recovering just on the cusp of diplomatic disaster.

"Good morning," the tall Jedi answers, in that dastardly confusing manner with which all Jedi speak. "I am Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn. This is my apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi. It's a pleasure to meet you, captain…?" Jinn's sky-blue eyes twinkle with hidden humour; the pilot's stomach sinks with the thought that perhaps his mind is being read. Despite all the time he as spent around Jedi, he is still not wholly convinced that Jedi do not have overwhelmingly supernatural powers.

Too late, the pilot realises that the Jedi is still waiting for an answer. "Saret," he says, just a touch too quickly. "You may call me Captain Saret."

Master Jinn's smile is subtly knowing, and although he does not turn his head towards his apprentice – what was his name? Kenobi – the boy tilts his head slightly and presses his lips together, as if trying to keep himself from laughing. The movement shocks Saret slightly; Kenobi had remained so still that it is only this small motion that draws the captain's eye to him. Outwardly, Kenobi appears completely normal, but there is something…different about him. Actually, the aura of focussed quiet around the boy is ever so slightly disturbing.

Kenobi starts as Master Jinn glances at him sternly, and a guilty blush starts on his youthful face. Saret blinks in surprise. All at once, Kenobi transforms from a stoic Jedi, a still, silent statue, into a young boy wincing at an elder's reprimand. But this small change is insufficient to displace the unsettled feeling in the captain's chest. The entire exchange between the Jedi, as quick as it is, seems to have taken place in complete silence.

Saret licks his dry lips and ventures, "Master Jinn, do you wish to be present for pre-flight checks?"

Jinn turns back to him, and is of a sudden all affable grin and politeness. "Of course, Captain Saret," he replies, motioning. "After you."

"Obi-Wan!"

The shout somehow makes it through the wall of beeps, voices, calls and hydraulic hissing that permeates the hangar, and Saret spies a dark-haired, green-robed man striding hastily towards them. Kenobi – Obi-Wan – grins at the newcomer with unabashed delight.

"Captain." Master Jinn waves a hand up the ramp, before turning back to his apprentice. "Five minutes." Obi-Wan nods happily, and his master drops a hand to his shoulder before starting towards the ship with both their packs settled on his wide shoulders.

Saret frowns. And now they look more like father and son.

But then Saret finds himself pacing up the ramp, the Jedi master not far behind him, and the ways of the Jedi contining to elude him.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan inclines his head in greeting as Avarin comes to an unhurried halt before him. The master healer returns the salutation, not one silver-tipped hair out of place, despite having most likely sprinted from the Healers' Wing.

"Did you think you'd escape my congratulations on passing your thirteenth life-day?" Avarin jests, his wide grin echoing his younger counterpart. His hand gives the scruffy head of hair a quick ruffle, pausing on the stub of a nerf-tail sticking comically out the back of the young padawan's head. Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow in a challenge that Avarin accepts, holding back his laughter successfully.

Obi-Wan shuffles his feet slightly; his hand hovers to his sleeve, where his flimsy resides, but Avarin turns his uncannily perceptive healer's gaze upon him, and smiles in understanding.

"Your puppy is safely recovering," Avarin says, chuckling. "He is quite the celebrity in the Healers' Wing; especially among the younger female padawans. It is not often the Jedi Temple is host to such an adorable sentient."

Obi-Wan nods his thanks, eyes shining in relief. He bows once more in farewell, and turns towards the ramp.

"Wait just a moment, Obi-Wan!" Avarin's variegated irises glint with amusement. "You cannot seriously assume that I left my very prodigious mound of work in the Healers' Wing this morning simply to inform you about the state of your first pathetic life form?" He gives a sly grin. "Stars' end, what has your master been teaching you?"

Obi-Wan freezes mid-step, jaw dropping open in surprise.

Avarin appears to mull his own words over, and he winces, rubbing his chin. "Actually, don't answer that," he mutters. Brightening, he draws a thin tube from his sleeve, wrapped in plain white cloth. "A life-day gift for my favourite initiate – now padawan, of course," he proclaims, the corner of his mouth twitching with humour. "Go on, open it."

Bowing deeply at the waist, Obi-Wan receives the present with a formal reverence, only straightening when Avarin gives him a nod of approval. The knots slide undone seemingly by themselves, and the heavy fabric is soundless as it slips away, revealing a grey flute.

The flute warms under his fingertips, made of a wondrous material; neither wood nor stone, it fits into his palm with the weight of masterful workmanship. Whorls and patterned leaves are etched into the shining silvery-grey surface, lining each tone-hole and forming an intricate wreath of vines around the mouthpiece. Runes meander their way across the carved leaves and branches, as if the wind sings words of an unknown language, flowing through the foliage. The design is so beautiful, perfect and natural, that Obi-Wan almost believes that should he blow across the mouthpiece and fill the flute with his breath, the leaves would dance in the sudden wind and sing for him.

"You hold it like this," Avarin says gently, smiling at the dumbstruck awe on Obi-Wan's face as the healer helps him to arrange his left, then right hand on the various tone-holes, holding the flute parallel to his shoulders and the ground, allowing him to blow over the first hole. A pure, crystalline note reverberates in the air, then fades into the Force, not forgotten, but a lingering warmth.

In the ensuing silence, Avarin tilts his head, sable and silver hair swinging along with the motion. "Like it?" he murmurs.

Obi-Wan opens his mouth, clutching the flute to his chest, and nods so hard he thinks his head might fall off.

"I thought you might. Take care of it," Avarin laughs lightly. "It is quite rare. I have no use for it, so I thought I would give it to you." At Obi-Wan's distracted gaze, Avarin frowns. Then a thought crosses his features, and he asks, "Has your master given you what is due?"

Obi-Wan jolts, eyes widening slightly. Slowly, he shakes his head.

"Don't worry," Avarin says quietly. "Qui-Gon's stubborn enough that he'll wait for what he thinks is the perfect time before he gives a gift, regardless of whether it actually is. You will have to be patient."

Now sporting a small, relieved grin in return, Obi-Wan bows once more in thanks, turns, and scampers up the ramp.

Avarin steps back and watches as the ship rises into the air, powers out the hangar and dwindles into a distant star, until it is visible no more, lost in the ether of hyperspace.

"I hope it sings," Avarin murmurs under his breath, smiling as he pivots on a heel to return to his duties.

(:~:)

The ship seems motionless on the incorporeal plane of hyperspace, moving through a timeless haze of colourless pattern, unchanging, one-dimensional and infinite all at once, as it has been for the past day. Obi-Wan feels the hyperdrive hum under the bare pads of his feet, and reaches out to steady himself on the rail of his bunk. The sleeping quarters seem sparse enough, but there are probably far worse out there somewhere. This is a Republic shuttle, and no matter how simple the arrangements, the thin bunks are probably dearly coveted after by the hundreds of millions who travel on public interplanetary ships every day.

Obi-Wan rubs a hand over his tired eyes – reading the mission briefing and associated intel had been even more boring than he had originally thought. The dull lines of information had none of the wit of Jedi philosophy or the gripping impact of history. And throughout the monotonous hours, Qui-Gon had spoken only a few words to him, between meditation, assisting the pilot, and reading his own copy of archived intel.

It is as if Obi-Wan's master does not even know his padawan is thirteen today.

Forcing a swallow past the aching lump in his throat, Obi-Wan arranges his blankets in preparation to sleep. Avarin, reputed to have a correct opinion about almost everying, is finally wrong about something. This small spark of humour does nothing to alleviate his misery.

Master Qui-Gon doesn't care after all.

So Obi-Wan climbs the little ladder into his bundle of blankets on the upper bunk, finding hyperspace cold for the first time, the chill of ventilated air from the grate above seeming to wreathe his eyes with frost.

And when the frost begins to thaw, the first drop of glacial melt runs down his cheek.

The hiss of the door sliding open and is so sudden, and the light so bright, that Obi-Wan nearly tumbles off his bunk. Attempting to right himself, he scrabbles in a most undignified manner at the blankets bunched in a restricting bundle around him, only to tilt precariously over the edge. The back of his mind calculates his slipping centre of gravity with increasing accuracy and mortification.

Qui-Gon watches his apprentice with the slightest of smiles on his lips, standing casually to the side as Obi-Wan fights his losing battle with gravity. When the struggle shows no sign of abating, Qui-Gon breathes a sigh. "Stop, padawan," he chuckles.

Obi-Wan freezes so comically and instantaneously that his rear finally slips off the edge of his bunk. He opens his mouth a soundless shout as he feels the pull of the shipboard grav-generator curl in his gut, rotating him until he plummets the six feet towards the floor, head-first…

And Qui-Gon steps forward smartly, catching his padawan under the arms, arresting his fall and reversing it gently to set him on his feet. Obi-Wan trips slightly on the blankets still cocooned around him as he stands slowly, disoriented.

"It appears your control is still somewhat lacking, padawan," Qui-Gon says wryly, holding Obi-Wan steady by the shoulders.

Obi-Wan blushes violently, looking away in embarrassment.

Qui-Gon frowns. The blushing thing would really have to go; it is the only defect in what would otherwise be a perfect image for negotiation. And then he notices how the bond between them shivers with trepidation, and inwardly berates himself. Obi-Wan must have thought that my displeasure was directed toward his character. Another small fault; Obi-Wan is far too self-depreciatory.

"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon says quietly, "I am not disappointed with you. Come. Sit." He guides his padawan to the lower bunk, reaching to softly rearrange the mess of blankets around Obi-Wan's small shoulders. Obi-Wan watches him with wide, cautious eyes, vague curiosity leaking out from within his hastily placed mental shields.

"Now, do you know why I am here?" Qui-Gon asks, smiling. He is quite sure his apprentice has waited with eager anticipation throughout the day for this moment.

He becomes less sure, though, when Obi-Wan shakes his head, turning suspiciously red-rimmed eyes toward his master fully for the first time that evening.

Qui-Gon pauses for a moment, surprised and concerned. He had not spoken overly much to his apprentice today; the usual start-of-mission procedures and intel-gathering had seen to that. But guilt creeps like a marauder into his heart when he realises he may have overlooked just how young Obi-Wan is. Obi-Wan may be a padawan, but no initate enters apprenticeship with full control over their emotions, or entirely rid of their child-like need for attention. The way Obi-Wan stares mournfully at his master smacks of neglect.

Obi-Wan starts as Qui-Gon sends a wave of reassurance over their bond, tinged with apology. "Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon murmurs, "I am sorry. I was otherwise occupied for much of today. I now give you what is yours." From a deep pocket, he withdraws the polished river stone from his childhood, placing it gently in his apprentice's hands. A rumble of laughter follows his next words. "And as much unlike the Jedi it is to say this, I wish to say it nonetheless: Happy life-day, Padawan."

In the brief moment Qui-Gon's fingers meet Obi-Wan's, he senses several things. Obi-Wan's hands are cold – clammy, even – and dwarfed by the stone that Qui-Gon has come to regard as no larger than a pebble. As Obi-Wan clutches the stone, his eyes widen impossibly, and his mouth opens slightly in formless words that do not make it past his lips.

A spark seems to dance in the river rock, a golden tongue of fire that flickers within the glimmering opaque depths of the stone. Obi-Wan's fingers tremble as they tighten white-knuckled around his master's gift, and a torrent of emotion upends into the Force, dissipating into peace, like a flood bursting through a fragile dam to seep nourishing into the earth below. Tears run unhindered down his cheeks.

Qui-Gon nods. "That was well done," he says quietly, taking care not to sound overly praising. But he suspects that his efforts are in vain. Obi-Wan's Force signature is a bubbly sea of joy and pride, now.

"This is a river stone from my home planet," Qui-Gon says as he strokes a finger over its polished surface. "It is very dear to me. Jedi are not allowed to form attachments – and see that you do not – but this stone is one of the few reminders of my childhood."

When Obi-Wan continues to clasp the stone tightly in his lap, blinking away the moisture in his eyes, Qui-Gon murmurs, still softer, "I pass it on to you. Will you accept it, Obi-Wan?"

He had expected a simple bow in response, but Obi-Wan once more casts all Qui-Gon's expectations into the four winds and throws his arms around his master's midriff, nodding vehemently as he buries his face into Qui-Gon's tunics.

For Qui-Gon, it is as if Dex had persuaded him to drink one of the Besalisk's famed brain-basher cocktails. Obi-Wan's pointy chin digs into his sternum painfully, and the river rock, though smooth, rubs jarringly against Qui-Gon's spine where Obi-Wan's hands join at his back. Tears and snot and he knows not what else forms a damp spot on his once-pristine tunics where Obi-Wan's face is pressed into his chest.

But strangely, he isn't bothered.

Why yes, Qui-Gon muses as his arms somehow find themselves around Obi-Wan's shoulders, a hand on the soft brown spikes of hair. This is like downing a brain-basher in one. His mind feels hazy, his chest constricted, but somehow, the hug in general feels extremely pleasant.

"Control, padawan," he mutters under his breath. Obi-Wan shifts slightly in his embrace, but the bond thrums with mutual amusement, as they both know reprimand has long since left them.

And later, when Obi-Wan lies wrapped in blankets, listening to Qui-Gon's deep, even breathing float comfortingly up from the bunk below, he feels his river rock warm where he grasps it to his chest, and hyperspace does not seem so very cold any more.

(:~:)

As Obi-Wan discovers the following morning, Jedi are rather respected on the planet of Naboo.

The entirety of the Nabooian royal court seems to have gathered before the front Palace landing pad to greet the Jedi ambassadors. The Queen stands at the forefront, resplendently awash with gems, her dress a multi-layered, heavy costume with jewels and hand-embroidered cloth spilling down the sides in spiralling patterns of crimson, sable, and snow. Her expression, masked behind layers of white make-up and diplomatic training, welcomes the Jedi with a slight smile. No more emotion than necessary. Her handmaidens surround her in cowled ranks of fiery orange and dusky ochre, each face as hidden as the next. The rest of the Queen's entourage stand to attention behind her, each outfit an explosion of colour trying to outdo the one beside it, save for the guards, who stare straight ahead with the piercing yet vague gaze of the well-trained soldier.

As Obi-Wan descends the ramp, a thought occurs to him that the Queen does not look unlike a fire lily, her handmaidens an extension of her delicate petals and her court all less beautiful blossoms and twining vines.

And on each side of the queen, standing calmly in darker shades of navy and sable, are the two senatorial candidates, their own separate followers surrounding them in protective half-circles. The younger of the two candidates – Naberrie, Obi-Wan remembers – smiles in welcome, his entourage sporting equally vibrant expressions on their faces. Senatorial candidate Naberrie cannot be considered young any more, but he is certainly not old, or even middle-aged. He exudes youthful confidence and easy friendship, and upon seeing him, Obi-Wan knows, with the simple perceptiveness of a Jedi youngling, that Candidate Naberrie is a good man and would be a trustworthy friend.

Then Obi-Wan's gaze slides to his left, and with it, he sends an inquisitive current of the Force which alights on the slightly crooked, crocodile smile of Senatorial candidate Palpatine.

It is only an instinctive compulsion to hide in plain sight that forces Obi-Wan to continue walking.

He had expected the two candidates to be different, but everything candidate Naberrie is, Palpatine is…not.

Candidate Naberrie is cultured, dressed formally, but his clothes and boots are both practical and not overly expensive. Palpatine, on the other hand, somehow makes his black robes appear regal, voluminous, and fluid, as if the senatorial candidate himself were dressed in moving shadows. The textured surface of the material shimmers in some places, but the slight reflective patterning only serves to suggest how light seems to writhe, captive, in the sharp lines of embroidery. In stark contrast with the sleek sable of his robes, Palpatine's lined face is pale, almost unhealthily so, his lips drawn back in what should have been a grandfatherly smile but somehow reminds Obi-Wan only of a Sarlacc's maw.

Something cold and unfamiliar coils in Obi-Wan's chest as he meets the empty gaze of the man before him. It takes him several moments to recognise the emotion as fear.

Palpatine's Force-presence is weak, ineffectual, like many who are not Force-sensitive. But just as his clothing seems to move against the slight wind, wreathing him with dark vines of shadowed identity, the Force is unsettled around Palpatine, the light skimming over his sphere of influence like silverfish skirting the mouth of a shark.

Obi-Wan continues to stare openly into Palpatine's gaze, facing his fear. A spark of recognition flickers in the darker pair of eyes, and then Palpatine turns his frighteningly empty gaze onto Obi-Wan's master instead.

Coming back to himself, Obi-Wan nearly stumbles as he reaches the end of the ramp. What must have been seconds had felt like years. His heart hammers behind his ribs, but he forces himself to still, to center. A long, calming exhalation. A thought flashes across his mind nonetheless.

For a moment, I thought he was a black star.

Qui-Gon's bright Force-presence passes Obi-Wan like a warm, caressing wind as he steps forward to greet the Queen. Only a slight nudge of his master's hand brings Obi-Wan back to reality, and he makes his hasty bow a smooth and effortless one, edged with apology. And quite a flattering greeting too, judging by the murmured titters of a few of the younger handmaidens, all Obi-Wan's age.

Focus, padawan, Qui-Gon's reprimands, his voice thrumming in Obi-Wan's mind. You are distracted. His tone is humoured, though, as he glances at the elder handmaids shush their younger counterparts.

Obi-Wan sends a jumble of his observations in a series of images and emotion across to his master. Qui-Gon does not pause in his greetings and introductions, but his feet shift ever so slightly into a basic Shii-Cho offensive stance. Reassurance trickles over the bridge between them and into Obi-Wan's chest, warming and uncoiling the cold knot of fear.

But as the Queen begins to speak, Obi-Wan senses that cold gaze fall upon him again, spearing him like a darkblade, a weapon not seen in battle for a millennia.

The black star still burns vivid with shadow on Naboo, its frozen rays seeking to capture the two Jedi like solar flares of dirty spun silk grasping at a pair of bright sapphire and harlequin comet-tails. And as Obi-Wan follows his master into the Palace, he notices something more.

The music of the spheres is eerily quiet, suffocated by tentacles of dark starlight.

Obi-Wan folds his hands into opposite sleeves, grasping the flute resting on his forearm. He clings onto that whisper of music like a hanged man to the rope of his noose, struggling to breathe through a miasma of shadow.

(:~:)

Palpatine's smile is faintly wider on this sunny morning. Perhaps he has overdone it slightly, and made his sudden interest in Padawan Kenobi too obvious. He would be a hard one to Turn, that boy…but should he succeed, that bright crystal that burns in Kenobi's heart would focus Palpatine's plan like a sable crystal in a darkblade.

He smiles once more, savage joy burning in his chest.

Why not? It is quite the time to take another apprentice.

Chapter Text

Fanart for TSS by elestreheart on tumblr

(:~:)

Qui-Gon Jinn is beginning to feel the first stirrings of concern for his padawan.

Obi-Wan seems rather more quiet than usual; a strange way of putting it, but in their short time together, Qui-Gon has already become acutely attuned to Obi-Wan's silence, so much so that reading him is a task often done easily enough.

I have a bad feeling about this, he realises, as they approach the queen together.

Obi-Wan had frozen momentarily as they emerged from the sleek Republic shuttle into the bright afternoon light, his boot missing the smooth transition from one step to another. A blast of radiance exploded out of his Force-presence, as if an azure star reached the last moments of its existence and burst into a supernova. Qui-Gon had spared Obi-Wan a penetrating glance as he passed him – and was nearly floored by the sheer panic in the air around Obi-Wan as he followed his master slowly. Diplomacy had required Qui-Gon to tear his gaze away from his apprentice and towards the dignitaries before him, but their bond convulsed, and Obi-Wan's signature wavered before withdrawing almost violently into itself.

It is as if the supernova of Light of a moment before had expanded to a limit and collapsed in on itself, crushing its heart of luminance into a tiny, breathless space, a whirling neutron star, pulsing with a rapid heartbeat of sharpened focus. Qui-Gon had probed the bond; but Obi-Wan has retreated behind shields of Vespari steel, cool and ineffectual, and far too advanced for the average padawan of his age.

Qui-Gon brushes Obi-Wan's hand lightly with his own, now, they halt before the queen; he senses rather than feels his apprentice's sweat-slicked palm tremble imperceptibly as they bow in unison. Despite this observation, though, Obi-Wan's bow has just the fluid humility required of a Jedi Padawan, much to the enjoyment of a few of the handmaidens.

But there are more pressing matters at hand, so he sends a quiet reminder to Obi-Wan to focus, in between the usual political introductions.

Obi-Wan's reply is a frenzied conglomeration of images, barely-restrained emotion and apprehension, and altogether completely indecipherable.

Qui-Gon shifts his feet and folds his hands into opposite sleeves as he clamps down on the spike of wrongness seething through the Living Force within himself. Everything is fine, Obi-Wan,he sends across the bond. Certainty wreathes his words.

In reality, Qui-Gon is not quite so sure.

(:~:)

It is only after the lengthy introductions had been completed – Senatorial Candidate Palpatine has the weakest Living Force signature Qui-Gon had ever sensed – many niceties exchanged and a formal invitation to dinner at the royal court extended towards them, do master and padawan find themselves alone in their decadent guest quarters.

Qui-Gon releases an appreciative sigh at the silence. "Obi-Wan, regarding the–"

Obi-Wan takes a step forward and crashes onto a couch, his knees giving way below him as he doubles over. He gulps in air with the desperation of a fish denied water, his face blanched deathly pale under sudden beads of sweat. Air hisses out from between his clenched teeth; a shocking sound, as it is not silence, nor a voice, but the uncontrolled passage of air that turns Obi-Wan's breathing almost into sobs.

"Padawan." Qui-Gon is beside him in a moment, a surprisingly gentle hand brushing back strands of soaked gold-streaked hair from his apprentice's forehead. The skin is clammy under his fingers. Something in the manner with which Obi-Wan shakes his head and swallows forcefully brings a thundercloud of anxiety into Qui-Gon's heart.

"Padawan," he repeats, relieved at the severity of his tone, and that it does not betray his dread. "You need to breathe. Slowly."

Obi-Wan's eyes flick up to meet his master's for a moment, and Qui-Gon finds the grey-blue irises darker than usual, as if their usually peaceful waters had swollen with weeping rainclouds; the calm before a storm. His mental shields are a curved wall of solid obsidian – obsidian. A moment – then the panicked sawing of Obi-Wan's breath shudders as it quietens.

"Yes…just so…" Qui-Gon murmurs quietly as he rearranges Obi-Wan on the cushions. His worry spikes to new heights again when he might as well have been moving deadened weights rather than living limbs. By the Force. At this rate he would be setting himself up for an intense brooding session this evening.

When it becomes relatively clearer that his padawan is not about to have a seizure, Qui-Gon excuses himself to the kitchen, fumbling in his pocket for tea. The water boils – seemingly more slowly than it ever had before – and into the teapot it rushes in a silvered waterfall, steam rolling over its lip. Qui-Gon does not bother to check whether the leaves are properly steeped – and some small part of him is aware he has just committed a cardinal sin he had sworn he never would – but crystalline liquid falls in a sparkling arc, lightly tinged emerald, from pot to cup, and a few long strides are all it takes for Qui-Gon to return to Obi-Wan's side and press the warm clay into that small, chilled hand.

Obi-Wan does not need prompting this time; down the entire cup of Sapir tea goes, in one long gulp. Pain blossoms into their bond – the tea had been close to scalding – but Qui-Gon welcomes the sensation as his own, embraces it, wraps it in luminous threads of silver and casts it away as scattered leaves. For it signals that Obi-Wan's shields are lowered.

Padawan. Qui-Gon sends the word more forcefully than he normally would, in an attempt to wade through any unseen barriers. Center. He feels Obi-Wan grasp at him through their tenuous connection, widening it, strengthening it, using him as an anchor. Qui-Gon breathes a weary sigh as the sickening spinning in Obi-Wan's Force signature finally slows to a halt.

He is rather more embarrassed that it took the Force-equivalent of a hug for it to do so. But a glance at his apprentice's beetroot cheeks at least shows that he is not alone in this sentiment.

"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon says slowly, feeling not the least bit young – this boy will be the death of me – "I think you owe me an explanation."

(:~:)

It takes the better part of half an hour for Obi-Wan to communicate every last iota of his experiences to Qui-Gon, both through ink and their bond. When the influx of emotion and shattered fragments finally cease, it would not be truthful to say that Qui-Gon is anything less than profoundly disturbed.

Palpatine.

It is true that the senatorial candidate had an exceedingly weak Force-signature – it is as if the midichlorians in his very cells were feeble, barely stirring whereas they whirl through Qui-Gon's and Obi-Wan's veins in a wild, dancing gavotte to the beat of their hearts.

But to be Dark…

It is only now that Qui-Gon realises that from the moment he stepped out of the speeder, he had instinctively raised his shields to counteract the vague aura of death seeping through the Force. He had not thickened them to the point in which he could not sense his apprentice – but he had certainly not sent out inquisitive probes like Obi-Wan had. And while he is attuned to the Living Force, Obi-Wan is embedded so deeply in the Unifying that at times Qui-Gon supposes that his stormy grey eyes shine with the light of a hundred possible futures.

These same grey-blue eyes watch their master, now, undisturbed by the silence.

At length, Qui-Gon asks, "Padawan, did that aura of Dark emanate solely from Candidate Palpatine?"

Obi-Wan frowns quizzically up at his master.

"Let me rephrase," Qui-Gon amends. "Is it absolutely indisputable that Palpatine was the source, and the singular source, of this darkness?" At his padawan's widened eyes, Qui-Gon continues, "So he might not have been, then. Obi-Wan…the Light shines through the Jedi; we are not sources of Light, but channels for it. Paradoxically, the Dark is… similar." A wry smile quirks the side of his mouth at the disbelief painted in broad strokes over Obi-Wan's gaping features. "The line between Light and Dark is but a thread. All shadows are cast by light, padawan. Palpatine may not even be Dark himself, but he might be living in the shadow of it. Constant contact with something so filthy no doubt leaves traces."

Obi-Wan makes an involuntary movement; his fingers twitch where they are wrapped loosely around curved ceramic.

"…But we should not dismiss Palpatine's involvement," Qui-Gon says, removing the cup from his apprentice's fingers before it can become a fine example of the second law of thermodynamics. "There is something Dark at work here. We must investigate – but without interfering overmuch with the election process. Tighten your shields when we are in the presence of the court."

Relief passes over Obi-Wan's features in a wave of calming peace. The unbridled trust in those irises unsettles Qui-Gon for a moment. It seems as though his padawan has complete and utter faith in his master – to the point where the simple declaration of a plan of action seems to have taken all his fears and smoothed them over, like waves washing clean the shore.

And just when Qui-Gon begins to brood over how to deal with this rather unexpected and confusing revelation – his apprentice surprises Qui-Gon yet again when he slides off the couch and kneels on the embroidered rug beside it, back straight and hands folded on his lap.

Obi-Wan smiles in gentle invitation.

Despite himself, Qui-Gon feels merriment bubble up out of him in a chuckle as he drops to his knees opposite his padawan. They close their eyes in unison, seeking synchrony in the unsullied currents of the Force as a tidal swell of Light washes over them in cool crystal waves, cleansing away the sable traces that had clung to them like windblown smoke.

But although they drift together, cradled in a coracle of reality in the unending sea of the Force, this meditation does not so much seem a release of emotion than a moment of comfort before battle. Neither master or padawan are aware of it; but the tiny coracle shivers as it crests a final surge of brilliance, and they slip over the lip of a waterfall together, the iridescent shards of the Unifying Force scattering around them in droplets. And perhaps years later, on the edge of another sea, when the twin suns above send currents of sand dancing over the endless wastes, a master will look back upon this moment and finally understand.

Their war begins here, in this first moment of silence.

The music of the spheres catches itself – then continues on, filling the quiet with whispering melodies.

And then a knock on the door – the first beat upon the war drums – rouses master and padawan from their meditation, and they go toward their future together.

(:~:)

Sunlight rims the horizon with blood. Several klicks west of Theed, an inconspicuous craft churns foliage into disarray as it brings itself to a sleek landing in a swampy clearing. The forest itself seems to lean over the craft, swallowing it further in shadow. A hiss of compressed air as an airlock snaps open, the synthetic silver of the ramp a glaring, unsettling bar in the natural branches surrounding it.

Xanatos Ducrion emerges from the blinding light within, a moving shadow among the artificial luminance, his tunics immaculately pressed and his new 'saber resting carelessly at his hip. Ice-blue irises roam towards the treeline, where the lights of Theed twinkle through the branches as if they were lanterns strung through the leaves.

A smaller figure climbs out after him, a Zabrak no more than ten standard years of age; but his fell eyes burn yellow, and the crimson skin of his forehead is beetled in a frown.

"You!" Xanatos's voice is a whiplash of authority. "You know what to do. I want a full map of connections the city's dirtier side by tomorrow evening. Steal if you have to; I want information."

The Zabrak growls softly in his throat. "And my payment?"

Xanatos narrows his eyes, and his gaze burns with cold fire. "I see no reason you should be so… informed. Your mother is forever bound to the Nightsisters. You have no roots, no anchor. Complete your mission and we'll see about your next meal."

Should anyone else have been observing the conversation, perhaps they would have noted that there is something utterly wrong with this child; a horrible bitterness drips off his words as they roll off his tongue with the harsh rasp of a world-weary adult. Red skin pulls painfully over bared teeth.

"Yes, sir."

Xanatos stares down at him. "What are you waiting for? Go on, boy."

The Zabrak boy has no name. Not anymore.

A swish of rags, and Xanatos is alone in the clearing once more. He pauses as he turns toward his ship; reads something in the currents of the air.

His smile is all white teeth and mirthless humour. His timing was right. Qui-Gon is here. And his new brat.

Very well, then. It is only right his former master should understand the true meaning of pain.

(:~:)

Palpatine's Force-signature is somewhat stronger when the Jedi enter the formal dining hall, but the miasma of death that clings to him and his entourage is still enough to twist Obi-Wan's appetite into a queasy churning in his stomach.

Qui-Gon's Force-presense flares slightly, anchoring Obi-Wan steady. Breathe, padawan, his voice echoes between them. Find the Light and draw from it. Obi-Wan takes a breath, letting the cool air fill his lungs, and as he releases it, he allows his fear and uneasiness to melt away into the calm currents of the Force.

Good.

Palpatine greets them with perfect civility. "Master Jinn. Padawan Kenobi."

Qui-Gon replies earnestly, nearly overdoing it slightly – but better to place an opponent in a false sense of security than to appear overly cautious. Despite his efforts, Obi-Wan is blanched pale, so Qui-Gon sends him off to greet Candidate Naberrie in his stead.

Brat. Leaving him to deal with politics on his own.

Obi-Wan feels the choking mist of shadow lessen slightly as he drifts into the other side of the room, away from Palpatine and his advisors. He pauses to search the sea of murmuring guests for his target; but rather embarrassingly, his target finds him.

"Jedi Kenobi!" Senatorial Candidate Atushi Naberrie is all bright smile and warm handshakes, his face lit by a certain fatherly light as he places a hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder. "Let me introduce you to my family."

Atushi's wife is an elegant woman with intense, hawk-like eyes. She sends Obi-Wan a perceptive glance that goes, painfully, straight through him. Understanding spreads over her features, but she does not so much react to the revelation as offer him the deepest respect for it. "It is an honour to meet a Jedi," she murmurs. "Especially one so handsome." A smile quirks her lips.

Obi-Wan's bow is slightly deeper than strictly required – but it is filled with gratitude, and just enough shyness to melt curious observers' hearts even further.

Atushi smiles, acknowledging the manoeuvre with a polititian's eye. "And my daughter," he says proudly as he crouches and reaches behind his wife. A pair of tiny hands appear, fisted in the elaborate folds of the dress.

"Sweetheart, where are your manners? Come out and greet Jedi Kenobi," Atushi's wife chides gently, batting at her skirts. Wide brown eyes peek out curiously from behind a curtain of silk. Obi-Wan supresses a smile.

Atushi grunts with the effort as he jerks his daughter out into plain sight, his two hands around her hips as he settles her before him. "Two years old and already so heavy," he sighs dramatically. "But you're destined for great things, aren't you, Padmé?"

Padmé Naberrie giggles slightly as she blinks up at Obi-Wan. Her tiny curtsey is an adorable ruffling of taffeta and satin; her dark, rich hair is similarly wrestled into an elaborate headdress. Obi-Wan transforms his low bow to crouch down on one knee, aware that this still does not bring his eye-level as low as Padmé's is. His head tilts to one side, and Padmé copies him enthusiastically.

The examine each other, one with a tendril of the Force, the other with naught but a child's clear insight. A bright flare of colour blazes out of the Unifying Force like a firework, bringing with it a face painted with white and red – but fades just as quickly. Obi-Wan blinks rapidly, trying to re-centre himself.

"Wan-wan," she mumbles, holding out a chubby hand to him. Already, her liquid brown irises hold a glimmer of the intelligence that floods her mother's.

Obi-Wan nods graciously, takes Padmé's tiny palm in his own, and brushes his lips against his thumb in a mock kiss to the back of her hand.

"Oh dear," her mother chuckles. "Quite the gentleman we have here."

Obi-Wan releases Padmé's hand as if scalded, colour rushing to his cheeks. He hadn't intended to be so…frivolous. It had seemed appropriate, somehow. Then Padmé's hand lands on his hair, once, twice, pat pat.

"You're sweet," she declares, for all the world to hear. "I'll trust you forever."

Then she promptly turns and buries her face back in her mother's skirts, and Atushi gives a light laugh and turns to the next politician.

It wouldn't have mattered if Obi-Wan had a voice in that moment. He would probably be speechless anyhow. And absently, he becomes aware of a deep chuckle beside him, and looks up into the amused glint of his master's gaze.

"Politics, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon says mildly, as a gong rings to sound the beginning of the meal.

(:~:)

Entertainment after dinner is a ridiculously fancy affair – and so utterly, Force-forsakenly dull that Qui-Gon sees fit to discreetly send his apprentice away, under the pretence of some errand or the other. Obi-Wan had been nodding into his Nyork broth, exhausted from shielding so hard and so tightly for such an extended period of time. In other similar situations, Qui-Gon would have had his padawan stay for a lesson in patience, but he would rather avoid diplomatic disaster in this case – a drowsy padawan would wreak havoc on their political image.

And so with a reminder to return to their quarters before midnight lodged firmly into his mind, Obi-Wan scampers off, eager to escape the twin daggers of Palpatine's gaze grazing his retreating back.

Once Obi-Wan rounds the corner, he breaks into a sprint. The silence seeps into him like sweet water to a parched tongue, and with it swells the Force, rejuvenating his weary limbs as he flips through the empty corridors. His cloak he had left by his master – but no matter. He breaks off in another direction each time he senses a sentient approach ahead, dancing through the labyrinth until he slides across the marble like a pebble across water, out of the palace walls and–

The sight of the royal gardens of Naboo takes Obi-Wan's breath away.

The planet's three moons drift upon the sable seas above, one waxing, one waning, the last a luminous coin resting on folded velvet of the sky, sewn with diamonds. Their differing shapes do not matter – for each is a crystal of the Living Force, focusing shining beams of moonlight onto the face of Theed. Obi-Wan muses dazedly that the Naboo might have built their homes with that particular rare ochre stone simply so that the radiant stardust of the Nabooian night can cast the city in silver and gold.

The Force is so clear here that when Obi-Wan steps out from the shadow of the last archway, it crowns his brow in a circlet of starlight and turns his rough-spun cream tunics to silken ivory. Half in a dream, Obi-Wan wanders into a paradise in the Force; it limns the grass with crystalline dew and brushes his fingertips in the breeze. The very air is composed entirely of flowing light as the three moons eliminate each other's shadows – an event so rare it is celebrated with a festival among the Gungans, he remembers. A hummingbird's passage his a blur of heat, the wind thrumming from its wings in iridescent comet-trails to dissipate into the Living Force.

With reverent steps, Obi-Wan transverses the quiet paths, his boots silent on gravel, pebble, and earth. A few paces, and he reaches the very edge, where a polished white marble balustrade is all that separates him from a breathtakingly high drop into the indigo waters below. The balustrade leaves its straightened precision here, looping out form the cliff face in a half-moon to form a small balcony, overlooking the roaring thunder of the waterfall beneath it. Groundwater must flow under the gardens here, emerging from under the overhang of the balustrade and whirling in an effervescent spray to the sea below.

His fingers find the lined marble with ease, and half in a dream, Obi-Wan finds himself perched on the world's verge, with the whispering wind behind him, Night's cloak whirling above, and the rumble of the waterfall below. Without him quite knowing why, his river stone is placed before his crossed legs; and his flute emerges from his sleeve like a sleek weapon from its sheath.

Obi-Wan watches the moonlight strike the river stone, takes a breath, and begins to play.

Time itself seems to still, caught in that frozen moment when the first note of a song shimmers into being, like a snowdrop formed in the perfect storm. The melody is not one he recognises; rather, Obi-Wan feels as if he is not playing, but listening. The song is everywhere, as is the Force. The stars are his notes, the galaxy above his five-lined score, the wind his concertmaster. His music is the chuckle of the brook meandering across the emerald blades behind him; it is the thunder of the torrent raging below his feet; it is the starlight in his hair and fireflies reflected in pools of dew; and the three moons above are triplet drums that dance to the rhythm of his song. And above all it is the Force, but the Force is not with Obi-Wan, or in him.

Obi-Wan is the Force, for the Force listens too. And it chooses to dance to the music of the spheres.

So as his flute-notes whirl through the garden like iridescent leaves, new Rominaria flower buds push themselves through dew-moistened earth to open their starburst throats of nectar in song. Crooked saplings straighten with new vitality as the Living Force courses through its veins, apple-blossoms wreathing its branches with jewels. The Jedi are the crystal of the Force – but Obi-Wan no longer simply focuses the Light – he is a conduit for it, a single azure star among the billions more flaring in unison in the galaxy and beyond, the influx of incandescence so strong within him that for a moment he fears that he will shatter like a crystal holocron and lose all sense of himself – but then he lets the fear go, as he does every emotion except pure, undiluted joy.

And perhaps the etched vines on the flute shiver in the starlight, but Obi-Wan does not see – his eyes are closed and his world is all Light, so why would he notice the softly glowing luminescence of his river rock drift up on a crescendo of notes to set the carved leaves on his flute dancing?

But no matter.

Obi-Wan does not speak to the Force tonight. The Force listens as he sings.

And when the melody finally falters, Obi-Wan releases the unsung song in a long, silent sigh and opens his eyes.

The garden is quite still around him, the air silent. Even the rumble of the waterfall seems muted.

And yet the song still echoes in the river rock as his fingers brush its smooth surface. So the stone is a vessel, a lodestone for the Force, and his flute the conduit that filled it. And Master Qui-Gon had said it was a simple rock!

Obi-Wan smiles.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon stands frozen in the archway to the gardens, his heart an ache within his chest as he grasps at the fraying threads of melody. Like a memory of a dream, the notes elude him, but the peace it brought still wraps about him, more secure than the cloak about his shoulders. He had realised something, then, in the long minutes he watched from the shadows of the gate; just as he cannot reach out and touch the music, he cannot touch the Light that flows through his apprentice, that is his apprentice.

Qui-Gon cannot touch the Light, not in the way Obi-Wan can.

The Living Force consoles him, but it makes no such distinction between Unifying and Living with his padawan. There is no passion, there is no emotion, there is nothing save for the Force. Peace and serenity are but pebbles along Obi-Wan's path; for the Force is ever present within him. Even should the Republic fall and all civilisation crumble, even should Sith-spawned hell lay waste to the jewel of the core, Obi-Wan would still burn as brightly as a newborn star. The Jedi are forged as crystals of the Force, yes. But Obi-Wan is part of the the forge itself.

Qui-Gon takes a moment to laugh quietly, for it seems that the Unifying Force has chosen to murmur another one of its little whispers to him. It occurs to him that Obi-Wan would make an excellent master, once knighted.

At the sound, Obi-Wan glances first at his master, then at the wandering paths of the moons above. He freezes in horror, calculating – and correctly so – that the hour is well past midnight, the limit set on his wanderings.

"Padawan," Qui-Gon calls. He starts at his voice – it seems but a rough rasp compared to the lilting cadence of the notes moments before.

Obi-Wan slides to a halt before his master and bows deeply in apology for his tardiness, his cheeks blazing crimson.

"Little one," Qui-Gon reprimands gently. Obi-Wan's head jerks upward, his gaze an amusing mixture of startled and wary. His master gives a wry smile. "Well done. There very few padawans able to meld with the Force half as well as you have just done. I have no intention of punishing you tonight." His fingers move of their own accord – and a moment later, the voluminous folds of his cloak settle onto Obi-Wan's shoulders. "You might be inclined to bring your cloak with you the next time you decide to visit the gardens, scamp," Qui-Gon says, masking affection with humour. "Naboo nights are rather cold."

Obi-Wan clutches at the warm fabric gratefully, and feels his master's hand settle on his shoulder as they turn back to their chambers together.

For a march to war, this isn't quite so bad after all.

Chapter Text

Padawan, I was not aware that you had dedicated your life to understanding the way of the sluggard and not that of the Jedi. Qui-Gon's voice is gentle, but holds an undercurrent of steel.

Jerking awake, Obi-Wan fights through a haze of weariness to focus on the Senatorial Candidates' debate once more. So far he had learnt naught from the experience save that both politicians were essentially aiming for the same goal, with nearly the same method and the same promises. Politics, Obi-Wan decides, follows the same formula every time without fail. One: Investigate the wishes of the public. Two: Draw up several 'plans of action' in which you promise to deal with these issues, but never saying exactly how you will do so. Three: Somehow mold these issues public interest of yours into your own stylised self-image, and bring the argument from governmental plans to personality. Four: Accuse the other candidate's personality under the guise of questioning his plans.

Obi-Wan's lips quirk in a grin. It occurs to him that much of politics is ad hominem. No matter what a politician would promise, it is only a select few who could ever be trusted to carry out those promises; the rest ride a wave of favourable public opinion based on some fake façade and then wallow in ambivalence for their term of office. And when re-election year rolls around, the politicians foray out into the masses, kiss a few babies, shake a few hands, support some small non-profit organisation against corruption – and once more the tide of majority votes carry them into power.

Democracy. Ha ha ha.

Some of Obi-Wan's thoughts must have rolled over into the bond, because Qui-Gon's fingers twitch where they are clasped behind his back, and he turns a stern, if not amused glance down at his apprentice beside him.

"Padawan," Qui-Gon murmurs, "The council did not assign you to this mission with the intent to know your – dare I say it – quite accurate description of politics in general. Might I remind you that your contribution to the mission report is appearing quite lacking for the present time?"

Obi-Wan's reply is a muted thrum of contrite embarrassment in the foot or so of space between them. Their hands folded behind their backs at parade rest, the two Jedi stand just off the edge of the theatre podium where senatorial candidates Palpatine and Naberrie continue their battle of words.

"Governor Palpatine." Atushi Naberrie's face is gently grinning, exuding calm self-confidence. "We have all heard your arguments; but I advocate a slow separation with the Trade Federation. Surely a complete cutting of ties with the Federation would weaken Naboo's economy, not strengthen it?"

Straightforward. But Palpatine never is.

"Ah, therin lies the misconception." Palpatine's lined cheeks wrinkle further with a genial smile. "The Trade Federation is growing steadily less further from what we would call a business amalgamation and closer to an independent group of systems."

The crowd hushes in fear, murmurs dancing over the electrified air.

A pause, like a puppeteer toying with the strings of his marionettes. A breath, of sorrow, of regret. "We all saw what occurred on Phindar with the Offworld Mining Corporation," Palpatine continues sadly, a shadow of grief moistening his eyes. "We cannot allow – I cannot, and I will not allow the same barbaric practices to occur to our people. I fear that we cannot serve both the demands of the Trade Federation while upholding the upright morals of the Galactic Republic."

Tumultuous applause. Atushi Naberrie forces a smile onto his frozen features.

Palpatine turns from his opponent to the audience, swallowing audibly. "I do not take this power lightly, my friends, my family," he says slowly. "I wish only to protect us all from threats to our future peace. Think not only of yourselves; think of your children." Palpatine's gestures and – Obi-Wan muses that this could not possibly have been unplanned – a woman in the crowd hands him her tiny two-year-old child. The governor's words ring with new power, swaying the crowd with their heavy magnitude. "This child is precious to me!" he cries, completely ignoring how the little girl takes one look at his gently smiling face and bursts into tears. "I will not let her come to harm! Neither will I let yours!"

The little girl is positively bawling by the time she is handed back to her mother, but the child's cries are swallowed by the screams of support exploding in an ever-cresting wave from the audience around her.

And there we have it, Obi-Wan thinks wryly. Kissing babies. Dark or not, it seems as though Palpatine gives people of all ages a thorough fright. Sending resigned amusement ringing across their muted bond, he glances up at his master.

The grin slips off his face.

Qui-Gon's head is tilted slightly as he stares coolly at Palpatine. His entire body seems tense, coiled, ready to spring.

And then Obi-Wan reaches up and tugs on his master's sleeve in silent question.

Qui-Gon jerks out of his contemplation. "Padawan," he mutters disapprovingly.

Obi-Wan's face has somehow moulded into the exact same annoyed expression –if younger – that Qui-Gon has plastered in bold strokes all over his own features. His master does not seem inclined to break out of his silence, so with a determined frown, Obi-Wan gives Qui-Gon's cloak yet another sharp tug, accompanied by a sudden lowering of shields and a mental poke as well.

"Padawan." Qui-Gon's exasperation is voiced both in a resounding growl in the Force and in a low murmur that shivers through the air between them. "What punishment do you think this merits?"

As if suddenly realising the extent of his actions, Obi-Wan releases the hem of his master's sleeve with a jerking motion, as if scalded, and flinches both physically and mentally away from the bond, which still seethes with Qui-Gon's annoyance.

Closing his eyes, Qui-Gon releases a pent-up breath and slowly fills his lungs again, blocking out the chaos of the crowd, the warm fluidity of Palpatine's words, and the… pain… in his padawan?

"Obi-Wan?" he murmurs. Qui-Gon doesn't open his eyes, but he knows his brow must be creasing with a frown. He knows he can't expect an answer – not an auditory one, anyway – but the bond itself stays suspiciously cool and quiet, with just a hint of cultured apology drifting detachedly towards him. Perfect poise, with a roiling sea of emotion hidden deftly behind quickly constructed shields. Only the merest whisper of the Force betrays the truth.

Qui-Gon nearly chuckles. So, a little negotiator stands by his side.

The roar of the crowd should be deafening, but the cacophony seems to surround master and apprentice in a barrier of sound, enclosing them in a strangely private half- sphere, even as they stand in plain sight against the wall of the theatre. There is balance here. Quiet in the midst of noise; peace in the eye of the perfect storm, twin candles of Light flickering in a lost sea of grey mist.

Steeling himself, Qui-Gon lets light flood his world again, and turns his slightly weary gaze down to the boy that examines the marbled floor as if it were the most interesting thing in the galaxy, gnawing on his lip as he does so.

"Little one," Qui-Gon begins gently. A sudden and quite bizarre desire to laugh wells up within him. He had begun this a few moments ago with a stern Padawan; now, he is reduced to pet names again, in an effort to placate his apprentice. "What did I tell you about biting your lip?"

Surprise shatters Obi-Wan's shields like cool water through a haphazardly built dam. Slightly wet azure eyes flick upwards to meet lighter cerulean ones for an instant, then dart away before emotion can well up from those blue irises. Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow when his wayward padawan's lip blanches white with new pressure for an instant before returning to its normal shade of pink.

"Better." Qui-Gon turns back to the debate to mask the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. Naturally, when he speaks, none of his amusement shows itself. "Now, on to your punishment – you didn't think I would let you get away with this, did you – patrol the city perimeter twice, then report back to me." At his apprentice's uncomfortable shifting, Qui-Gon relents slightly. "I do not think you need to worry. Theed is hardly Nar Shadda. Carry your 'saber with you, and keep your comlink on."

Obi-Wan bobs a contrite bow, his tiny braid swinging pathetically by his scarlet-tinged cheek, and turns to go.

This movement is arrested by a large, warm hand on top of his head. Obi-Wan nearly overbalances when his feet continue with their motion for a few moments but his head does not. Qui-Gon's deep chuckle resounds from behind him as his master's rough palm ruffles his hair once, and Obi-Wan feels the laughter coalesce into a sense of utter peace that dances once across their bond then back towards the older Jedi.

"Comm me if you sense even the merest hint of Dark." Qui-Gon's warning is accompanied by a mild rap to Obi-Wan's head.

Obi-Wan cranes his neck backwards to glance at the large Jedi. His master's twinkling eyes have an undercurrent of seriousness. But perhaps that is because Obi-Wan is examining at his master's features upside-down. How strange.

Qui-Gon does not begrudge himself a smile, now, as he lightly pushes his padawan's head to face the right way again. But he deftly conceals any emotion with an order. "I expect you to be back in time for evening meal."

Obi-Wan tilts his head in that particular angle that Qui-Gon has already learnt means a particularly amused and longsuffering Yes, Master,and at Qui-Gon's gentle nudge he slips into the melee of sound without further ado.

A small frown flits across Qui-Gon's brow. Has he really become that transparent to his padawan?

Then one particular member of the crowd turns his jubilation into action, and Qui-Gon throws himself into the resulting fray with a small sigh of annoyance. Pushing Obi-Wan out of his mind, he begins to wade his way through the brawl of uncoordinated limbs towards the two Governors. We come to serve, he contemplates wryly. So when his sharp jab meets the wine-reddened face of a particularly pugnacious lump of a man with an extremely satisfying crunch, that too is also a fulfillment of service.

Just a rather untraditional one.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan lets the folds of his cloak hide the lightsaber at his hip as his boots click smartly down the cobbled streets. Theed is a beautifully bright city, its wide streets bustling with a babble of languages in the late afternoon sun. The focused light seems to flood the Palace Plaza with molten gold, somehow wreathing the colonnades with gossamer silk and the bleached-bright Triumphal Arch with spun sliver. To Obi-Wan, it seems as though his limbs are suffused with Light, and that he does not so much pace through a city on the cusp of sunset than glide across a sea of celestial glass.

The marketplace is still a chaos of shouted deals and unrestrained laughter at this hour, as stall-keepers seek to empty their tables at close of day. When Obi-Wan seeks to open his mind and become aware of his surroundings, the cacophony of voices threatens to overwhelm him in a torrent of images, emotions, and every other sense in between – but Obi-Wan empties his identity into the Force, seeking to anchor himself into the endless weave of melodies that are the Force itself. And gradually, Obi-Wan realises that the market itself is simply another symphony in the warp and weft that is the music of the spheres, another variation in the pattern the loom of the Force weaves at its will. The torrent within him slows and waltzes into a gentle swell; Obi-Wan no longer needs an anchor, as the Force catches him in its current and carries him as gently as a newly-fallen leaf on its turgid meanderings.

Belatedly, Obi-Wan finds he goes not go unnoticed on the wide streets.

Shopkeepers advertise their wares in an uncivilised shout straight into his tender eardrums, apparently reading his polite bearing as that of one of rich status. It certainly does not help that Qui-Gon had not imparted him with any credits – his pockets carry only his river stone, and his flute is cool against his forearm, but he has nothing of monetary value on his person. But apparently this does not matter, because his slight bows of apology are met with titters from the younger women in the clothing shops and whoops of hilarity from gruff metalworkers. A few of them attempt to ruffle his hair, and do not even try to mask their laughter when he evades their motions with easy grace. And to Obi-Wan's eternal mortification, he realises he may be a Jedi, but this does nothing to prevent the impact his young features make. The older women, mothers and grandmothers, look upon his yet-unangled face and melt in their seats. A few of the fatter, more matronly ones even reach out to – Force forbid - pinch his cheeks.

Oh fierfek, no, he snarls mentally to himself, as an elderly woman creaks over on arthritic joints to grasp his padawan braid, crooning about his similarity to her grandson all the way.

"You're exactly like him, dearie," the woman smiles, revealing a dozen clean teeth, but the rest missing. "Except for the pretty manners. Stars above, that boy needs some setting straight."

Obi-Wan bobs a hurried bow and pivots on a heel, only to find a Muja fruit thrust in front of his face. His eyes follow the tanned fingers that grasp the plump purple fruit, up a rough-spun sleeve, to warm brown eyes edged with lines from decades of smiles. "Go on, kid," the man grins. "Excuse the wife. She dotes on our grandson, see."

A small shake of the head; Obi-Wan's hand pats his pockets and flips palm up, to show that he has no credits.

"No charge," the aged man says firmly. His rubs at his stubbly beard with his free hand, and then flicks a few fingers in the vague direction of Obi-Wan's hip. "It's the least I can do for that Order of yours."

Obi-Wan glances down and starts as he discovers his cloak has parted, revealing the sleek length of his 'saber resting on his thigh. A spike of unknown emotion surges up within him; but then he meets the warm gaze of the elderly man once more, and realises it is not a slight towards him that the man thinks only of the Order and not of the individual. Honesty shines in those earthy irises; the man has read Obi-Wan's insecurities like a book. In fact, the old man probably only spoke of the Order simply because he had instinctively sensed that this young Jedi with such impeccable manners would refuse a gift given solely for his sake.

Even now, there is a trace of amusement in that steady, wise eyes as they stare challengingly into Obi-Wan's own. There is too much read there to be normal; the Force hums quietly around the stallholder. Mildly Force-sensitive, then. Not enough to be called to the Temple, but far more than the average sentient.

Obi-Wan bows deeply at the waist, as respectfully as he would to a most revered master at the Jedi Temple. He would accept this gift as one in lower rank and less wise.

"Come back any time," the old man calls, his laughter oftentimes more coughs than chuckles, as Obi-Wan continues on his way. "No sweeter muja in the entire galaxy!"

Sunset takes the peace in Obi-Wan's heart and spreads it from his chest down to the tips of his fingers. An explosion of honeyed sweetness bursts in his mouth as his teeth break the muja skin. By the Force. Obi-Wan muses that the old man might have been right about his wares after all.

The shadows lengthen as the hour passes; people begin to unfurl bright awnings to cover their stalls, and the streets quiet as most of the Naboo head home to prepare evening meal. Obi-Wan's footsteps turn into echoes that reverberate between the yellow-bricked houses as he reaches the edge of Theed. The wide avenue to the Palace stretches out behind him as the soft twilight wind ruffles the hem of his cloak.

A muffled noise from down an alleyway. Obi-Wan flips his nearly-finished muja from his sword hand into his other palm and flicks his 'saber from his belt. He would have shouted out a warning, if he could; as it is, he simply centers his thudding heartbeat and forces himself to wait.

In the grey pool of half-shadow where the passageway joins the main concourse, a hooded figure detaches itself from the bland wall behind it and slides forward with the sideways-crabbing motion of one that is accustomed to quick escapes. The voice, when it comes, is a raw rasp from vocal chords that are supposed to be young, but a worn rough by experience.

"Give that to me."

Obi-Wan raises the remnants of the muja fruit questioningly, taking care not to loosen the grip on his lightsaber as he does so. The figure does nothing more than slink forward a few more steps, the faintest notion of hunger emanating from its flickering Force-signature. A moment more, then the muja spins in a wobbling arc to land squarely in a red-skinned palm.

Without another word, the creature turns and darts off into the growing ink of evening. But as its fettered edge catches the dying rays of Naboo's sun, its hood is thrown back by a stray gust of wind, and a crown of stubby cranial horns glisten wetly in the fiery luminance. At the edge of a greater pool of shadow, a dividing line between Light and Dark like the sharpened verge of the galaxy itself, the figure turns.

Obi-Wan's sky-blue gaze meets a pair of fell yellow eyes; their irises of heaven and hell stare at each other across a blank ravine scythed in the Unifying Force, the line paradoxically distinct and blurred, like a lightsaber's blazing edge. Obi-Wan's hand twitches on his 'saber as the Force screams a warning in his mind, clarion-clear.

Prophecy. Fate. The Unifying Force floods his limbs with foreboding; the Living Force stays his finger on the activation switch. Now is not the time, nor the place.

Obi-Wan blinks, and those terrible eyes are gone.

A shock of clattering sound up ahead, as a demolition worker sends his last wall of the day crashing down in a cascade of bricks, allowing the final sunbeams to rush through the sudden opening, through the ink-lined street in which the fell-eyed shadow had stood. Obi-Wan flings a hand up to shield his face as the fiery spears of light throw his silhouette into sharp relief. These rays of the dying sun march in a sharp column back along the long avenue, through the hollow Triumphal Arch, pooling in the empty Palace Plaza, up through the open gate to the Royal Palace and the colonnaded hangar behind its gardens like soldiers of war, through marble and obsidian to the plasma generator complex, uncaring for the ray-shields that bar its way; and there, the light will fall forever down the lightning-riddled depths of the generator pit, seeking to end an unending shadow.

The sun slips below the horizon, its last mote of luminance a glimmer across Obi-Wan's 'saber hilt as he clips it to his belt once more.

But the darkness lasts for a moment, no more.

Glow-lamps flicker to life in the streets of Theed, spreading like fireflies in a gale; and as Obi-Wan begins his trek back towards teacher and food, he strides along a road paved with stars, with naught but the music of the spheres as company.

But it is enough.

(:~:)

These are the dead hours of night in the Royal Palace of Theed.

A Jedi Padawan is driven from his bundle of warm blankets by insomnia. Taking a polished flute from a low table, he passes his master's steady, muted Force-presence with the soundless steps of one accustomed to silence. The door closes voicelessly behind him as he heads towards the moonlit gardens.

A senatorial candidate pushes wistful thoughts of his daughter's bubbly laughter from his mind, and turns once more to the mountain of plans and paperwork he has yet to complete.

A solitary grey wraith flows smoothly from pillar to alcove, down the empty corridors, guards falling in his path like soundless puppets with their strings stretched taut, then snapped.

A darker shadow slinks in the footsteps of the grey, the wrinkles of its white, white smile mere ripples in the undisturbed air as he glides over the trail of corpses.

The Force is still.

(:~:)

Xanatos DuCrion has come by a few new pieces of intelligence. He had wrung it out of his informant, that tiny, pathetic slip of a Zabrak boy that has no name. And in light of this new information, he had decided to allow his plans to undergo a slight alteration. He had come to this planet on a double mission; but now his aims have changed. To put it simply, revenge before money.

So it does not matter that an activation switch for the network of bombs hidden in recesses all over the palace sits snugly in his pocket; it does not matter that a hefty sum of credits will be transferred to his anonymous inter-systemic bank account should the bombs eliminate one specific sentient. Xanatos DuCrion would give that all up simply to hear Qui-Gon Jinn scream.

The first crystalline flute-notes drift through the columned veranda towards where he crouches against the shadow of a pillar. Xanatos allows himself a grin to savour the moment, his hand palming his lightsaber from his belt, shifts his weight and–

"I would not do that, my boy."

Xanatos becomes aware of a burning heat at the back of his neck, like hellfire coalesced into a scorching line just over his skin. Swallowing a shout of pain, he forces himself to turn slowly. He sees naught but the edge of a tattered hood, and the moving shadow within it that grasps the crimson blade held to his throat. His wary mental probe shatters off a solid miasma of sable.

"So foolish." The voice is not a voice, but terrible, rasping words smashing through Xanatos's useless shields like a flamberge to wood-splinters. "You seek to know who I am?" Dark laughter; terrible, smothered giggles of the insane, and powerful enough to ignore that fact. "Let me first tell you what you are, Xanatos DuCrion."

Xanatos wants to swallow, but the dryness in his mouth and the terrible line of fire at his collarbone prevents him from doing so. A monster is uncoiling in his chest, feeding on the sable ink of pure, unadulterated fear. Silence closes in around them; this creature has thrown up powerful sound shields in the Force without even seeming to move.

The shadow speaks, and when it does, it is as if its tongue were made of worms and its vocal chords unturned strings rusted with age. "You are a Dark Jedi. Jedi are no more than pawns to be dispensed with…their very existence flickers with disgusting luminance. The blood-metallic scent of plasma driftsfrom the scarlet blade. A pause; the shadow seems to smile, baring its teeth in a terrible leer that somehow scorches although it is unseen. "You are nothing. You are a silhouette, nothing more; a shadow of a shadow is nothing at all. You cannot claim to be Dark when you still stand in half-light."

Words somehow make his past Xanatos's dry lips. "Then take me as your apprentice…Master." The last word is a gasp of realization, a subjugation of a soul that knows it is hopelessly overshadowed.

A cackle, then words spat out like grease on a fire. "You are unworthy. Unworthy to even fall by my blade." The 'saber hisses like a dying snake as it retracts into its hilt; Xanatos feels sweat drip off his chin as he collapses to his knees, gasping for air.

"You are warned."

The Force shatters with a silent scream, and the shadow melts into the sable darkness, leaving Xanatos panting, his own compulsively activated 'saber a bar of lighter red, its new crystal spluttering in the wake of a stronger opponent. Xanatos slips round the pillar, aware that the Force-shields have disappeared with their caster; it is only a matter of moments before the sonorous hum of his 'saber makes his presence known to Jinn's padawan.

But as it turns out, even that is unneeded.

A voice snaps out from behind him, sharp with command and worry and furled recognition. "Obi-Wan! Run!"

The flute notes break off in a shattered cascade of crystal, and Xanatos slews around to find his former master mere meters away, his 'saber already a harlequin blur of old sentiment and new determination.

"Jinn," Xanatos snarls. He spares a glance over his shoulder to find Kenobi staring at him with wide, wide eyes. But Xanatos knows there is nothing more for him here – the shadow is watching. It must be. So he scythes his 'saber across the metal inlay of of the marble floor, sends sparks flying up into the Qui-Gon's face, and is gone in a patter of sprinting feet.

"Obi-Wan! Alert palace security!" Qui-Gon's shout echoes loudly in Xanatos's ears; and then his former master's boots clash on stone as Qui-Gon follows him.

Xanatos' fingers slip into his pocket, and find the activation switch ready. His breath hitches. Not yet. Soon. There is still a way to make Jinn understand his pain.

All he has to do is find a way to let Qui-Gon watch as his precious padawan is consumed by the imminent explosion.

Despite the tendrils of shadow still clinging to him as he flies through the palace, Xanatos DuCrion begins to laugh.

Chapter Text

Qui-Gon Jinn's boots beat a rapid rhythm against the marble and larmalstone floors of the Royal Palace of Theed as he flies down the colonnaded corridors. His heart is beating a more irregular rhythm, one that protests the sudden rush of epinephrine flooding his nervous system so soon after slumber. Actually, come to think of it, his knees are starting to ache, too, and his feet are rubbing painfully against the rawhide that lines the inside of his boots, for he did not think to pull on socks before going in search of his errant apprentice.

Ironic, that he darts after the shadow of his former apprentice now.

Xanatos's cloak is a whisper of liquid ink in the still night air; Qui-Gon does not so much chase a silhouette as listen for the murmur of wind against cloth. The tall Jedi curses under his breath as the young man's outline shimmers, then vanishes. Xanatos is far more proficient in arts of the Shadow now than Qui-Gon remembers. The ease with which the twisted Force-signature melds into the silken night is nowhere near comparable to Dooku's, but holds testament to no little skill.

The main entryway of the palace is silent as a tomb, the air stale and the plaza an empty necropolis beyond the yawning mouth of the heavy gates. Xanatos is at home here, a man dead to the Force slinking among the silence of a graveyard. His presence is empty. And he cannot be seen.

But Xanatos underestimates the intimacy with which his former master shares with the Force; and he does not understand the depth of the connection that once existed between them. Pausing on the ghostly white steps to the plaza itself, Qui-Gon makes his next breath a slow, centering inhalation of the Force itself, gathering the light of the stars themselves and cradling it within him, in a vortex of wonder and glorious clarity. The Living Force pours into him from the infinite lanterns of the galaxy itself, an influx of heat and ice so sharp and clear that for a moment Qui-Gon feels as though his identity wavers, his very body a crystal vessel about to break.

The Light cascades out of him in a pulse of roaring life, sweeping through the necropolis in a wave composed of music from a million worlds, the laughter of billions of sentient species coalesced into a single shout, and every shade of colour from the turquoise of Felucian flora to the ochre of the Tatooninian Sarlaac. For one breathless instant, Qui-Gon is the water of the fountain at the plaza's centre; the petals of the smallest blossom emerging from the cobbles; the aquamarine slates of the roofs above; the vermin in the sewers, the nightingale in the silver leaves and the cold stars singing above. The necropolis explodes into life, a cacophony of birdsong rising over the twisting treetops.

Qui-Gon tenses. There.

The sole whisper of death comes from the former Jedi darting out into the starlight, a rat caught in the hunter's spotlight.

A leap that dances over the currents of the Force; a searing line of emerald fire reaches towards the shadowed edge of a cloak–

And a scarlet claw snaps into existence, fear polluting the Force like mercury in spring water. The fear is not Qui-Gon's. Nor does is it from his former apprentice.

Xanatos DuCrion's smile is a panting curl of lupine lips over bared teeth as he presses his lightsaber to the wrinkled surface of an old man's throat, using the civilian as a shield between him and his former master. The elderly Nabooian's breath comes in gasps of wheezing pain. The burning effluvia of crimson plasma is close enough to bathe his aged features in sweat.

"Xanatos." Qui-Gon's lips barely move. "Don't."

"Oh, you and your love for pathetic life forms," Xanatos spits in return. "You've turned senile, old man. Your endless capacity for pity is endearing. And extremely useful." His free hand clutches the Nabooian's waxy white hair and yanks it backwards, baring the veined neck to the 'saber's scorching length.

Qui-Gon's lightsaber hovers at his side, not in offensive position, but very much ready to lash out at the slightest stimulation. "I am Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn. What is your name?" he asks the captured man quietly.

"Eir. Fruit vendor." Well-worn lines deepen at the corners of the man's eyes as he tries to smile at his own weak attempt a humour, only for his features to turn into a grimace of pain.

Qui-Gon inclines his head slightly, even as Xanatos snorts in disgust.

With a sneer, Xanatos takes a step backward, pulling Eir along with him in his slow path towards a nearby public hangar. Eir winces as he shuffles along, the thin white fabric of his nightshirt drenched with perspiration. Qui-Gon follows silently, each step a measured dance, his sharp eyes searching for a trip in Xanatos's step, a tremble in his wrist, anything that could be exploited against him.

But there is none, of course; Xanatos has been trained well. Trained by Qui-Gon Jinn.

Qui-Gon must have shifted his weight slightly, for Xanatos tightens his hand on the hilt of his 'saber, bringing its thrumming length a hairsbreadth closer to his hostage's skin. The Force is taut with tension, and the sawing breath of the elderly man only serves to quicken the drumming of blood in Qui-Gon's ears. Even the birds have fallen quiet. The air thickens with the silence as morning mist gathers around them like a voiceless army, extending moist fingers to fog over their boot-buckles, wreathing their hair in dampness, concealing them from the prying eyes of the earliest risers. Qui-Gon and Xanatos duel with naught but their minds in a clearing amidst forest of vapour, a paradoxically private arena in the public arcades of Naboo.

When Qui-Gon speaks, his voice is a whipcrack lost in the muted blank whiteness encircling them. "Xanatos. Every hangar in Theed has security forces. By now, my padawan will have no doubt notified palace security, who will in turn alert the hangar guards. You are alone. The chances of you leaving the planet are minimal at best. Surrender and you will have a fair trial on Coruscant."

Xanatos's laugh is a terrible thing, clawed from his lungs by betrayal, dripping with blood of father and bitterness of son. "There is no such thing as a fair trial for a Dark Jedi, Master."

"Why are you here?" Qui-Gon is stalling for time with his words now, seeking to create a distraction. "What is your purpose? I have never known you to be without a goal, Xanatos." His gut clenches painfully; this particular truth came to light in a terrible tearing of their bond on Telos.

Of all the actions Qui-Gon had expected Xanatos to do at this moment, he did not expect him to smile in victory. The smile is a lightning bolt in time. It had flashed on the face of a thirteen-year old, all those years ago.

"You're as easy to manipulate as ever, Qui-Gon," Xanatos chuckles. "Two things." His grip shifts on his lightsaber as trails of sweat render the metal slippery. Qui-Gon's pace is steady as ever, but the tick of movement is as bright as the sun. He would move on the next irregularity. "One: I want you to understand what it means to be broken." Xanatos's confidence sends a spike of doubt into Qui-Gon's mind – he cannot help sensing he has missed a vital observation.

"And two." Xanatos's head tilts to the side, dark gaze boring into his master's sky-blue ones. "Why did you assume I came alone?"

The Force shrieks a warning; The bond flares in a burst of terror from Obi-Wan; Qui-Gon's shout is lost in the frenzied hum of Xanatos's lightsaber; and the world dissolves in a reverberation of terrifying magnitude, the repercussion rolling through the fog towards them from the direction where they came, thudding in their bones, driving sharp splinters into their eardrums. The fog eddies, agitated, as the very air echoes with the klaxon scream of alarms. Qui-Gon's pivot in place sends the edge of his cloak flying, but the mist separates his sight from whatever the source of disturbance was.

A choked gurgle from behind Qui-Gon has him spinning on a heel, emerald lightsaber whirling as he curses his distraction–

And agony blossoms into the Force like tendrils of blood curling in water.

Qui-Gon takes a step forward and falls to his knees beside Eir, who chokes on the smell of his own burning flesh as he lies nerveless on the dew-lined cobblestones, confusion and shock etching fissures of pain into his already lined face. The deep carmine of Xanatos's lightsaber fades into the mists like a fleeing nightmare.

Sky-blue eyes meet fading russet ones, and the Force begins to stir.

(:~:)

When Obi-Wan comes to, the world is all in disarray.

Stone dust covers him from the tips of his matted hair to the bloodied soles of his bare feet, ground into his pale sleep-shirt and running in dark trails down his sweat-lined face. When he at last blinks enough of the dirt out of his eyes to see, confusion sends his senses into discord. He is quite sure he had been sprinting down a particularly magnificent corridor away from the security garrison, but what surrounds him now is not opal and marble, but a strewn battlefield of debris, wooden splinters and the terrible harsh whiteness of emergency lighting.

Crouching in the looming shadows created by the mountains of shattered stone, Obi-Wan is somewhat gratified to find the cool length of his flute is still in his sleeve. He gives himself a mental flick of reprimand for leaving his 'saber in their quarters; the blade would have been useful here, both for light and to clear a passage.

After much careful shifting, and several more nicks to add to the scraps covering his entire frame, Obi-Wan manages to reach the edge of the carnage, where a dusty but still sturdy corridor stretches out towards the gardens.

A blur of movement in the corner of his vision.

Obi-Wan whirls on a heel, ignoring the crunch of broken class under his bare skin – the pain has already grown until it turned into numbness – and dashes after the shadowed figure. He is quite aware that without a lightsaber, he might be committing the height of folly, but he is also aware of his duty as a Jedi.

In the flashing on-off luminance of the white emergency light-strips, the cloaked form seems to shunt horribly from motion to motion, missing the smooth movement between one leap and the next; it flickers from one position to another, a horrible dance of broken puppetry, hooded head tilting in strange angles as it flashes in its stop-motion path up the corridor away from the klaxon wails of the security alarms.

But the figure must be a living creature, for it grazes a pillar with a grunt, and objects spill out of its cloak. It pauses for a moment, then growls a curse and darts away.

Obi-Wan dances over these solid shapes, and registers their shape from an obcure holo-book in the archives. Weapons-grade explosives, wires sticking out from their blank interfaces. So the object of his pursuit is responsible for the chaos they just left behind, then. Spurred on by this new knowledge, Obi-Wan is so intent on his pursuit that he does not notice the surge of warning in the Force.

Unstable from the previous blasts, the ceiling ahead of collapses inward, smashing into the scarred marble below with cracking retorts. Obi-Wan skids to a halt, catching a glimpse of the figure as it turns its head to glance back at him.

Yellow irises meet grey-blue. Recognition flares in the Force, like molten iron ore sparking into hazy air.

Then another tonne of marble crashes between them, sealing a wall in the Unifying Force between present and future.

In the half-shadow of the blinding white lights, Obi-Wan remains standing, staring at the blank wall ahead for a moment longer, and then slowly retraces his steps, to where the blocks of explosives still lie innocuous as bricks on the dusty floor. There, among all the mess of unwired weaponry, lies a single pebble-like oval.

Obi-Wan stoops to pick it up. The texture of the not-quite-sphere is worn under his fingertips. A muja pit.

He can still taste the sharp sweetness of that muja; feel the weight of it in his hand as he nonchalantly tossed it to the other boy. The half-finished fruit had smacked into that red hand, and they had nodded at each other before going their separate ways.

That had been sunset. But now, Obi-Wan realises, it is almost sunrise. He pockets the muja pit with a wordless sigh, and begins his search for a safe path out.

(:~:)

The mist is clearing in the plaza as morning approaches; but whether it comes singing a song or a dirge is unclear.

"Look at me," Qui-Gon orders as he deactivates his weapon and returns it to his belt. His rough hands gently examine the deep charring of the 'saber wound in Eir's chest, sending what little healing he can into the seared gash. But although he sends a tireless trickle of cool power into the injury, Qui-Gon knows that nothing can be done. Xanatos had been sly, indeed. The wound is not deep enough to cause instant death; rather, it was intended to prevent Qui-Gon from pursuing. Death would have caused instant acceptance on the Jedi Master's part; Injury would lead to a desperate effort to save what cannot be saved.

None of this changes the terrible fact that Eir has only minutes to live. Not even Master Healer Vokara Che – not her, nor Avarin could do anything for him, even if they were here.

"Master…Jinn." Eir's words are an exhalation of exhaustion. It is the voice of an old man full of years, and is strangely glad that at the last moment, he will not pass on alone. The Force wreathes the damp white curls on his aged head with luminance; it hums a soothing lullaby to welcome back one of its own.

Qui-Gon senses the Force pulse with each slow, fading throb under his fingers, and bows his head in acknowledgement of an equal. "Master Eir."

A quiet chuckle, that turns into a gasp. "You read minds, the whole lot of you." Eir murmurs, his bright earthen eyes closing halfway. "A few dozen more of those…midi-things…and I could have been…a Jedi, you know."

For that, Qui-Gon does not have a reply. He nods instead, holding the other man's gaze with a steady regard of his own. The air is not only damp, now. It carries the scent of smoke and fire, somewhere not far off, back towards the palace.

And with the scent of death, comes another realisation. "You sensed my Force-pulse," Qui-Gon says. It is not a question.

"That was why…I left my house, yes."

The Jedi takes a slow, centering breath, driving away the guilt that spikes in his chest.

The old man shifts slightly, understanding.

"Master Jinn," comes a whisper. With an apparent effort, Eir's eyes refocus on Qui-Gon's. "Yesterday… I met your companion. The most intelligent, perceptive boy. Gave him a muja." Despite the halting weariness of his words, the corners of his lips twitch with a smile. "He your son?"

Qui-Gon shakes his head, swallowing. "Apprentice."

A small snort of laughter. "Stubborn, aren't you?" The old man's gaze clears suddenly, and Qui-Gon finds himself staring into a steely gaze, like spears browned from rust, but trophies of a life filled with experience and happiness through hardship and war. "Oh, I see." Eir closes his eyes briefly. "The other one was your son too. Once."

The Jedi master's face is wiped clean of emotion, but his hands still shiver once, still pressed over that awful wound. So he starts, surprised, when cooling hands cover his own.

Eir's gaze is uncannily similar to Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi; wise, humoured, and accepting. He weakly taps Qui-Gon's fingers, and the tall Jedi removes his hands from the burnt layers of clothing and flesh, helping the dying man arrange his palms on his ruined chest. As the early-morning mist begins to clear, and the eastern sky lightens, Eir takes a longer breath, inhaling the living currents of the Force itself, and opens his eyes for the last time. The words, when they come, are soft, but serious.

"Teach him well, Master…Jinn. Do not…judge him…by the sins…of his older brother."

Qui-Gon nods once, and bows his head in deference to a master's teachings.

The Nabooian sun breaks the horizon like an advancing army to the east, its bright rays chasing away the last wisps of windblown mist, suffusing limbs with warmth and casting Qui-Gon's aquiline features in bronze, pouring liquid gold over him where he crouches over a figure resting, as if asleep, on the light-drenched cobbles of Theed. And with it the Force sings gently, lulling, inviting, paving a path with its soft notes into the music of the spheres itself.

Eir does not feel the warmth as it caresses him in the folds of the Living Force. He is already gone; a new melody wanders in the endless variations of the music of the spheres.

Qui-Gon places a hand on the thin shoulder, offering comfort more to himself then to what is not there. "There is no death. There is the Force," he murmurs quietly. "Rest, master."

Then he rises and turns toward the Palace and its echoing klaxons, for he has sworn an oath to protect the living.

(:~:)

Dressalian Pilot Saret Stellarian stares down the length of the crimson 'saber and decides that no matter what his job description had stated, he is in no way prepared for this.

"Move aside." The young man's pale face is slick with sweat.

It is not the lightsaber at his throat, or the corpses of security guards that line the hangar door, that causes Saret to comply. It is the deranged, haunted wastes that are the eyes of the man grasping the scarlet blade. This is the gaze of a once-proud man with demons at his heels.

Saret moves aside because the demons are most likely to follow this crazed young man, and not him.

The sleek form of his Republic shuttle catches the first rays of dawn as it powers through the hangar at five times the legal indoor flight speed and punches out of atmosphere and into hyperspace.

A clatter of boots on duracrete; an entire platoon of palace guards rush into the hangar bay. A few slew to a halt, eyes widening as they take in the corpses littering the entrance.

"Where?!" Their captain shouts.

"Out there." Saret gestures dazedly to the steadily brightening sky. "With a multi-million credit Republic shuttle. He destroyed the tracking system, too. With that bright stick of his."

"Bantha-chizzk."

Saret sighs, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. "My thoughts exactly."

(:~:)

Palpatine finds the small Zabrak boy wandering at the edge of the hangar. Evidently, he had arrived at the hangar to find his associate gone and no money in his pockets. For a moment, Sith Lord and Zabrak boy regard each other across the duracrete, the dawn light striking both their hoods but not illuminating their faces. Then the younger, red-skinned face frowns.

"What do you want?" the boy challenges.

Palpatine does not answer immediately. Instead, he allows a smile to spread across his features, one that shows his power, his façade, and his willingness to help. "That is hardly relevant. It matters not what I want. Let me ask you a question: what is it that you want?"

The boy appears doubtful. The frown deepens on that scarlet forehead. "Power," he says, finally.

The grin on Palpatine's lined features widens imperceptibly. "Then come with me. I observed your actions at the palace this early morning, and believe you might have some…potential. I shall me your master, and you my apprentice. Come with me and I shall give you all you seek."

"Why?" The boy challenges.

"All in time. Presently, I must ask you another question. What is your name?"

A pause. Shame fills the air between them.

"Listen to me." Of a sudden, the words fall from Palpatine's lips like dark hammerblows on crystal. "I shall give you a name. You shall be called Maul."

"Maul." The Zabrak rolls the word on his tongue, tastes his new name, his new identity. "Maul."

"Come." Palpatine turns. "In time, you shall be Darth Maul."

Palpatine's smile is white, whiter than the light itself, the whiteness of emptiness. Maul would not be the apprentice. But he would do as a weapon.

Maul straightens fully as the wind catches the lip of his hood and throws it back, baring his scalp of red, red skin to the full glare of the light. "Yes, Master," he murmurs.

(:~:)

The dead are counted and tallied, a list drawn up by head of security; the Jedi master does his own part to reassure those in the palace; the Queen prepares a speech to soothe the frightened hearts of her people. The new senator will give his inauguration speech tonight, and it will be one of sorrow and regret. Governor Atushi Naberrie is among the victims, his office taking the worst of the blast. The Queen is glimpsed comforting his distraught wife while his uncomprehending daughter twists her fists into both their skirts, calling for her daddy.

Qui-Gon Jinn finds his apprentice in the plaza, kneeling by a prone figure covered with a linen sheet.

His steps slow as he approaches them. Eir.

Obi-Wan does not react as Qui-Gon crouches and places a hand on his shoulder. The bond remains muted and quiet, even when Qui-Gon clears his throat at states quietly, "Padawan."

A small shake of the head is all he receives as an answer.

Qui-Gon lowers himself to the ground beside his apprentice and counts the bruises and scrapes that cover Obi-Wan's skin. The boy is clad only in a thin shirt and sleeping pants; old scratches from ilum and new lines bleed scarlet from his feet. Despite the warm morning air, he is shivering.

"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon tries again. "We should visit the medcentre. Your injuries exceed my unremarkable repertoire of healing skills."

One of the small hands fisted on those scratched knees trembles, then turns, fingers uncurling to reveal a muja pit resting on the white, bloodless palm. Qui-Gon stares at it for a moment, then closes his eyes and releases his pity into the Force with a small sigh. Extending one of his own large hands, he folds Obi-Wan's fingers back over the pit, lending him security and reassurance with his firm grasp.

"I will contact the council," he says gently, "and request that he be cremated at the Temple and his ashes buried there, among the rest of our Order."

At this, the tremble in Obi-Wan's hands turn into a violent shaking. An audible swallow, and a single nod; that is all.

Qui-Gon releases his apprentice's hand and stands stiffly, ignoring the ache of protest in his joints. "His name was Eir."

Obi-Wan stands shakily, and closes his eyes as he bows deeply to the shrouded form of Eir. Qui-Gon does the same.

Then Obi-Wan jarrs in mid-movement as he tries to turn, and Qui-Gon catches him before his wounded legs fold beneath him. The palace guards around them look away, seeming to understand the shattered emotion of the moment. The tall Jedi gathers his padawan in his arms and sets off for the palace medcentre, knowing that Obi-Wan still avoids his gaze, but Qui-Gon chooses not to comment on it.

The pool of dampness collecting where Obi-Wan's face is pressed into his shirt tells far too much.

(:~:)

The service is short at the Jedi Temple. Few attend; this is not the funeral of a well-respected master, or an admired knight. Only Master Yoda and Mace Windu are there, along with a tall Jedi master, who rubs at the bristles of a new beard, and his padawan, who scrubs at his eyes with a bandaged hand.

"One of the Order, Master Eir was not." Yoda's gravelly voice is a balm of wisdom, of serenity, of sympathy. "And yet welcome him as our own, we do."

Qui-Gon nods at his apprentice, and Obi-Wan steps forward. The heavy folds of his cloak pool around his boots; he still paces with a slight limp. But his hand is steady as it ignites his lightsaber and touches its cerulean edge to the pyre, where the shrouded form of a little-known man lies in repose.

The flames spread quickly. Flickering light soon illuminates all their faces.

Qui-Gon's hand comes to rest on Obi-Wan's shoulder as padawan once more joins his master's side.

Do not judge him by the sins of his older brother.

His hand tightens slightly; Obi-Wan glances questioningly up at him. Qui-Gon simply shakes his head mutely, the ghost of a smile flitting across his face. Tilting his head, Obi-Wan returns his grin hesitantly, a little more of the grief in his eyes passing into the Force.

As the smoke rises into the sky above, master and padawan stand vigil together.

And in Obi-Wan's secret garden, cloistered in the heart of the Jedi Temple, a single muja sapling emerges from the wet earth, tasting the clean air for the first time.

Chapter Text

Night drapes the Jedi Temple in the velveteen folds of her cloak, letting the timeless, silken fabric pool over the five-spired monolith as her lullaby sweeps into the barest of ripples over the still, calm pool that is the Force here. Most Jedi walk the stars in their slumber at this hour, and those still awake are muffled by the weight of knowledge in the Archives, the hushed quiet in the cool air. Night sings softly, and the Force is in her breath, her voice; intangible fingers reach into the crèche to alight warm upon the forehead of a sniffling youngling, easing the child deeper into the comforting, snowy world of naïve curiosity that forms the path of children's dreams. Night's smile is a brilliant supernova that blossoms like a bloom in Spring, and yet it is no more than one twinkle among the countless cold jewels in her hair, a crystalline echo in the Unifying Force, a single note in an infinite symphony.

Night. The Force. One and the same.

A disturbance in the silvered water below; the barest deepening of breath from light sleep to wakefulness.

Obi-Wan opens his eyes to the clinging darkness of his room. His heart still hammers in his throat, roaring in a rushing current past his ears. Sweat clings to him in a sticky, uncivilised layer, seeping into the blankets clenched in his cold hands, dripping off the twisted end of his padawan braid. His shields are sharp and against his mind, pulled in towards himself so tightly that he cannot breathe, a cold, cold embrace around his chest, the Force tainted like the taste of iron on this tongue–

That particular nightmare had been worse than most. It had been painted crimson, slashed in vivid brushstrokes across his vision, drenched with steel and agony.

He shudders as he gasps a lungful of air. Breathe.

And suddenly, Obi-Wan knows he cannot stay here. Not in these blankets, which snare him in their convoluted arms. Not in this room, where the dark is stifling, and his presence is altogether too loud and too silent. The Force is somehow elusive tonight, still and dead, and if he cannot touch life soon, Obi-Wan realises he might as well scream.

Well. He might scream, if he could. He might never stop screaming, just to make up for years of not being able to.

Obi-Wan opens his mouth. The silence mocks him.

The blankets make a muffled thump as they impact the far wall. His cloak compresses the air in a soft movement of heavy cloth over thin nightshirt, the supple boots are soundless against the smooth floor, and the Force itself seems to cocoon him in silence as the door slides open on oiled tracks. Obi-Wan halts at his master's door; Qui-Gon's Force-signature is muted within, like the shuttered glow of a slumbering star resting in the currents of the Living Force.

They had made a ritual out of this, in the long weeks since their return from Naboo. Every other night, Obi-Wan would surface from the endless, haunted wastes of his dreams to a steady hand on his cheek and the soothing aroma of tea wafting over smooth ceramplast bowl. Qui-Gon would say nothing, respecting Obi-Wan's silence. And then master and padawan would meditate together until inevitably, the soporific qualities of the tea would nudge Obi-Wan into the cradle of the Force again. This they had repeated in an endless cycle, again and again until it had become something so ingrained it is as natural as his first Shii-Cho katas.

What he does not know, of course, is that more often that not, what he feels as the gentle arms of the Force is partly his master's embrace rocking him to sleep.

Obi-Wan wonders why Qui-Gon did not come for him tonight as he raises one pale hand towards the door. He pauses, knuckles hovering over the solid surface. The reflection of his fingers is twisted in the dull mirror of durasteel, bands of irregular light shifting over the not-quite-smooth surface from the small window to his left.

He withdraws his hand as if stung. The durasteel flickers in an echo of the warping lights of the city, and then rests undisturbed once more, like the deceptive stillness of water in the pool where some hidden creature lurks, waiting for its prey.

No, Obi-Wan decides. He will not disturb his master tonight. In the few short months he has known Qui-Gon, he has wept far too much for his liking. Once en route to Ilum, once on Naboo, and many, many times since, the salty rain flowing unbidden down his cheeks in the dead watches of night, dreamlike from whence they came.

He will not weep, or burden others with his inability to clear his mind. He will find strength in the Force, like the Jedi his is supposed to be.

The Force. He needs to feel the Force, somewhere green and living.

The doorway to the Temple beyond slides open to his touch, and he disappears a moment later, simply a firefly flickering in the celestial seas of the Living Force.

(:~:)

It is the absence in the awareness around him that jerks Qui-Gon out of his sleep. Reaching over his head for his chrono, he groans in the garish green light of the numbers. It is rather unlikely that he will have the pleasure of an uninterrupted night's sleep in the next twelve years or so. With a private musing that he must be getting rather old for this, he shuffles out of his warm bundle of blankets and plants his bare feet on the freezing duracrete floor. Pausing only to employ a few choice mutterings, he flings on cloak and boots and strides out of quarters.

There is no question where his apprentice is. Obi-Wan's path is studded with glow-lamps in the Force, like a meandering stream lined with pebbles of innocence and curiosity. But here and there are wisps of windblown moss, doubt, worry, and an amalgamation of other emotions limned with resolve, water-weed edged with quicksilver. A pretty thing, but poison all the same.

Qui-Gon's steps quicken. He was not concerned before, but this gives him cause to brood.

Down the half-lit residential wing, boots soundless on the rough Tekite floors –into a turbolift that does not so much propel him down to the main concourse as send him in a hushed freefall, a falling leaf in the air currents of the Force – out into the wide central bridges, uncaring that he has none but droids for company – another lift, a shortcut through the Room of a Thousand fountains, the trickling streams a slower lullaby than the pulse in his blood – and then through dimmer corridors, less-walked and less known, and out into open air.

Night spins her star-sewn cloak far above, and all the air is silver with starlight. The paths are unworn here, the greenhouses crystal-walled. Only the faintest scent of Coruscant's perpetual exhaust is here; otherwise, the garden is clean, and fresh, and living.

…And Obi-Wan is the bundle of cloak and tousled hair huddled in front of the spindly form of a muja sapling. The Force pools around him, a stream flowing from its source.

"Little one." Qui-Gon nearly winces at the harsh discordance of his voice in this cloister. It is as if sound would pollute the awed silence here.

Obi-Wan tilts his head slightly, and amusement permeates the Force like the velvet blossoms by his feet.

That, if anything, lets Qui-Gon's heart to slow and his bearing to relax as he lowers himself to the damp earth beside his apprentice. "You must take pity on your master's old bones," he grouses lightly. "It does not benefit my health to wander the Temple in the small hours of night, padawan-mine."

Immediately, a crinkle of flimsy is extended in his direction. Unfolded, it reads simply, Old age does not give excuse to shirk duty.

Qui-Gon's Force-signature becomes of a sudden clear and defined. He is not entirely successful in keeping his amusement from leaking into the bond, and no small amount of surprise. Obi-Wan had written his reply well before Qui-Gon appeared; his ability to predict others is as sharp as ever.

Obi-Wan's smirk is half lost in the soft moonlight, but Qui-Gon's clip of his padawan braid has his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

Their mirth warms the Force for a moment; but Obi-Wan's hidden chill is entirely too transparent to Qui-Gon.

The Jedi master frowns down at the small ruffled head. "We should speak to Master Avarin in the morning about seeing a soul healer. These nightmares are wearing you down…and I along with you."

At the mention of healers, Obi-Wan twitches, and he turns wide, pleading, baby-blue eyes towards his master.

"…That isn't going to work, padawan."

A pout that quickly turns into grin as Obi-Wan notices the pause before his master's reply and takes it as a herald to approaching victory. Carefully wiping his face into the picture of dejection, he allows his head to droop, blinking away tears that are not there.

"Pathetic." Qui-Gon takes his padawan's attempt at deception and blows it to smithereens with all the subtlety of a hundred-round magna blaster. "The next time you attempt to melt my hard, hard heart into liquid compassion, you might be inclined to reinforce your shields a trifle more, scamp."

Obi-Wan's head sinks further into his cloak as his ear-tips colour scarlet with embarrassment. This act in itself is ridiculously endearing.

A pause, in which Qui-Gon reaches out a hand and plants it squarely on Obi-Wan's spiky hair, turning his padawan's gaze to meet his own. "Do not be afraid of showing compassion, Obi-wan," Qui-Gon murmurs quietly. "There are Jedi far older and deemed – dare I say it – wiser than you, who do not even comprehend the meaning of the word."

Obi-Wan stares up at his master blankly, accepting the gift but not understanding its purpose.

Qui-Gon closes his eyes momentarily and lets the breath escape him in a small sigh. His fingers tap his apprentice's scalp gently. "What I mean to say, padawan, is that you need not be ashamed of your tears." And before the padawan in question can do anything except blink, Qui-Gon has risen and set him on his feet.

"I rather think we would benefit from a few weaponless kata." Qui-Gon sweeps to face the garden before them, and feels his apprentice do the same. "And then, little one, you should sleep. We have a trying day in the morning."

He senses rather than sees the small, determined nod beside him.

The starlight weaves silk around their measured dance, stardust around their centered orbit. And the Force flows around them, no longer stagnant, as the birds break the silence in the short hours before dawn.

(:~:)

Avarin is not in the least bit pleased when, at the crack of dawn, he is approached by a very determined-looking Qui-Gon Jinn, apprentice literally in tow.

"Avarin," Qui-Gon says bluntly.

"Jinn." Avarin raises an eyebrow at the squirming padawan attempting to make his escape. The large hand at the collar of his cloak prevents that from happening.

One silent, burning look from his master is enough to skewer Obi-Wan in place. He subsides to Qui-Gon's side obediently, hands folded into opposite sleeves and staring forward with detached disinterest.

"We might be in need of a soul healer," Qui-Gon states, without preamble.

"Of course." Avarin sweeps one steely, searching gaze over Obi-Wan, noting the dark bags under his eyes. "How long?"

"Three months. Since we returned."

Avarin narrows his eyes in understanding. "If you would wait a moment. Master An has been sent to the Galactic psychological healers' meet, and we're short on hands for the moment. I would examine you myself, Obi-Wan," – he inclines his head toward the padawan – "But I am due in surgery in ten minutes. Can I trust you to take care of your stubborn old master for the duration of the wait?"

The corner of Qui-Gon's mouth twitches. "That won't be necessary, Avarin," he says airily. "We have an appointment elsewhere," – Obi-Wan looks up at him quizzically – "so we will return in the afternoon."

"Very well, then," Avarin replies, already turning to go. "Just don't scare my apprentice healers."

As the green robes disappear around the corner, Qui-Gon feels a questioning tug on the bond. Curiosity bubbles across the link. The tall Jedi Master swivels his gaze downwards to meet that of his apprentice.

"I would not be so eager," he advises. "You may lose interest once you learn where we have to go."

Where? The word is not formed, not exactly, but the intent is broadcasted plainly enough.

Qui-Gon settles a steady hand on his apprentice's shoulder and steers him towards the door. "The office of the Senator of Naboo."

A tremor in the Force. Obi-Wan sidles closer to him, and Qui-Gon cannot bring himself to object to what little comfort this brings.

(:~:)

In the silence of the Temple aircar, Qui-Gon wraps a tendril of warmth around the chilled star that is his padawan's Force-signature. A wave, and the privacy shield rises between the pilot's seat and theirs. He does not like what he has to say, but he would much rather Obi-Wan turned up on the senator's doorstep well prepared than high-strung with worry.

"The council has come to a decision regarding the senator of Naboo, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon begins. He allows his usual serene confidence to permeate his tone, for he cannot show uncertainty in the face of a padawan who has been shaken to such an extent already. "They have decided that Senator Palpatine is not a threat. The darkness we felt from him could have been an echo of…Xanatos, no more. We cannot know how long Xanatos was on Naboo, but prolonged exposure to the Dark side leaves traces. The Jedi emissaries sent to Naboo in the weeks after the incident felt nothing… and so it has been concluded that Palpatine is innocent." There is a thin veil of distaste colouring this conclusion.

Now it is Obi-Wan's turn to skewer his master with a particularly perceptive gaze. Fishing his flimsy out of his pocket, he scribbles a furious line, lacking his usual poise in the rushed movements.

The flimsy is thrust under Qui-Gon's chin. The question is scribbled urgently across the worn surface. And what of your opinion, Master?

Qui-Gon's lips thin imperceptibly. When he speaks, his words are stiffer than normal. "It matters not what I think, padawan. The Council has spoken."

But Obi-Wan is not to be denied. Another line, even messier than the last. That does not answer my question.

The Jedi master's eyebrow raises ever so slightly. His apprentice blushes crimson as a vague image of a kitchen ladle in the main refectory floats serenely across their bond. A quick dip of the head in apology, one that quirks Qui-Gon's lips in amusement. But his amusement does not eclipse the seriousness of the situation, however. Obi-Wan still has much to learn…and the truth would be deeply confusing to understand.

Qui-Gon decides that now may well be the best time. The Council would not approve of what he will say next; but corrupting the next generation is altogether unavoidable.

"Obi-Wan." Qui-Gon watches as his apprentice automatically sits up straighter, recognizing both the familiar use of his name and the warning in his master's voice. The Force tenses as Qui-Gon continues. "There is something you must be aware of." A pause, as the searches for the right words. "The Council and I do not always reach an accord."

A stifled snort, one that has Qui-Gon's icy blue gaze pinning his apprentice in place again.

The older of the pair turns back to the window before speaking again. "What do we serve, padawan-mine?"

It is testament to his surprise that Obi-Wan's stylus does not move, but his answer hangs unspoken between them. The Code.

"Yes," Qui-Gon muses, "…and no." The smallest of grins belies his mirth at his padawan's obvious confusion. A tidal wave of fettered colour in the Force between them declares the emotion anyhow. "No, Obi-Wan. We serve the Force." There is something utterly certain in the manner with which Qui-Gon murmurs that statement. It defines him. Qui-Gon Jinn is a servant of the Force, and he always will be.

Obi-Wan's round, round cerulean irises are a dizzying maelstrom of hero-worship and doubt.

"The Living Force requires us to remain in the moment. The Council acknowledges that, and they mean well. But they are not infallible, Padawan. I would not defy the will of the Force in order to adhere to that of the Council. And when those times are upon us," Qui-Gon faces Obi-Wan, eyes sombre. "You must choose whether to follow your master or the advice of your elders."

Obi-Wan's mouth hangs open in a perfect 'o' of sudden comprehension. Then a vague feeling of dejectedness leaks into the bond, and Qui-Gon has to force himself not to look away. It is too soon after all. He does not yet know what to choose.

A small, warm hand urgently tucks flimsy into Qui-Gon's battle-scarred palm. The Jedi master holds his apprentice's unreadable gaze for a moment more, and then dips his head to peruse the flimsy's contents.

A padawan is a path-seeker. But the lamp to light his path is held by one, and one only.

Qui-Gon becomes aware of a warmth spreading in his chest. It takes a moment for him to recognise it as gratitude; pure, undiluted, glowing. A glance up from those gloriously simple words reveals his apprentice's beetroot cheeks, but Obi-Wan nods resolutely, his gaze holding a certain degree of stubborn determination that Qui-Gon recalls from his own reflection.

He needs quite a longer span of seconds than usual to find his voice again. "I want you to be watchful around the senator, padawan."

Obi-Wan nods, the reminder of their transport's destination weighing heavily upon him. He slumps wearily in his seat.

Qui-Gon extends a dark-sleeved arm to wrap around the thin shoulders. Obi-Wan gravitates closer to his master, like a small asteroid drifting towards its parent, and anchors himself firmly to the source of his light as the shadowed path to the senate opens up before them.

(:~:)

The office of the senator of Naboo is plush with decadence. It is smooth without being elegant, commanding without being patronizing. And yet the lack of angles and edges are somewhat disconcerting on the twin patent-leather red couches and the ebony desk, carved whole from what must have been a truly ancient tree felled on Kashyyyk, for the desk is eight feet long at its widest and polished to a gleam, the faded growth rings radiating outwards on its surface like ghostly holos of a long-deceased life. Obi-Wan senses his master's inward frown at this through the Force. There is nothing wrong with the décor. It simply bleeds power from every orifice.

And sat behind the desk, now rising to greet them warmly, is the last skeleton in this sterile graveyard, all white grin and grandfatherly wrinkles wrapped in a cloak of shadow.

"Master Jinn, Padawan Kenobi! Please, sit!" Palpatine's smile flashes genuine welcome from one curved tip to another, and his eyes crinkle in the corners from the sunlight streaming in from the window. "I owe you both the most sincere of apologies for only contacting you now," he chuckles as he waves over a tea-bearing attendant. "The first few months of office are a bureaucratic nightmare – transitioning smoothly from one senator's term to the next is nigh on impossible."

Qui-Gon's smile is politely accepting as he raises a fragile porcelain cup of perfumed tea to his lips. To Obi-Wan's awe, not even the faintest flicker of disgust crosses the emotionless mask of Qui-Gon's face. "Senator Palpatine. It must be difficult to handle the Coruscanti media following the events at the election," he states casually.

Palpatine's features take on a measured dose of grief. "I am not proud of how I became senator," he says gravely. "I am a keen advocate of democracy, Master Jinn. And so I grieve for Atushi Naberrie and his family, and the families of all those who perished in the bombing. They are victims of the enemies of liberty."

"They have our sympathy," Qui-Gon replies, setting down his half-empty cup with a gentle clink and turning to his apprentice. "Drink your tea, Obi-Wan. It is quite a rare leaf."

With some difficulty, Obi-Wan represses the urge to return his master's twinkling glance with his own incredulous glare. He brings the rim of his own almost-full cup to his lips, nearly choking on the cloying, artificial scent of the watery liquid. When he lowers the brim, he catches the faintest of smiles on Qui-Gon's face.

"You might be wondering why I called for you," Palpatine continues, smiling what is certainly meant to be a grandfatherly, doting smile at Obi-Wan, but only serves to make him even more uncomfortable. "I have two matters to discuss with you."

Qui-Gon inclines his head, folding hands into opposite sleeves. Obi-Wan straightens his back, hands clasped neatly on his knees.

"Firstly, I wish to express the gratitude of both the people of Naboo and myself for your actions on the eve of the election. You saved many of my people, my own person included," Palpatine declares.

"We come to serve," Qui-Gon murmurs in return. "But I fear your gratitude is misplaced. We were not able to prevent the intruder from successfully activating the charges–"

"Perish the thought," Palpatine interrupts. He waves a hand, as if the motion could dismiss the very idea. "Your apprentice in particular cooperated magnificently with palace security. More lives could have been lost should we have been without both your expertise."

Obi-Wan shifts uneasily. He has never felt quite so unfavourable towards effusive praise before. Qui-Gon nudges him through their bond as he dips his chin in acknowledgement of the senator's thanks, and Obi-Wan hurries to comply.

"And the second matter of importance…?" Qui-Gon questions.

"Ah, yes!" Palpatine seems to regain some of his previous jovial spirits; he smiles one more as he motions for a refill. "I've discovered that in recent years, relations between the senate and the Jedi are not as close as they once were."

"That is hardly strange," Qui-Gon remarks. "Most of the contact senators have with the Jedi is through the Jedi Council." The unspoken words The Council reports to the Chancellor ring between them.

Palpatine does not seem to mind. Rather, the eagerness in his tone. "Oh, but it is such a terrible waste of a good relationship between the Jedi and leaders of the Republic! Imagine what we could accomplish if we encouraged increased cooperation between the senate and the Jedi."

"Hmm." Qui-Gon meets Palpatine's gaze with a lukewarm stare. "What do you propose?"

"I'm so glad you understand," Palpatine straightens, appearing of a sudden more powerful and imposing, while retaining the ever-present friendly smile on his lips. "I, and the other senators with me, would be honoured if the Jedi Order would send a few of their younger novices to study in the senate, under the senators themselves. Not on a long-term basis individually – I wouldn't imagine interrupting their normal studies – but on a rotational term. Some young padawans, perhaps, or even older initiates who have not been accepted as apprentices, who would otherwise be sent to the Service Corps. Those children could even remain here for longer!" Palaptine's excitement is palpable. "We hope that this can foster a mutual relationship based on benefits between the senate and the Jedi."

And before Qui-Gon can reply, Palpatine throws down the gauntlet, so to speak. "And we thought the perfect start to this programme would be through young Kenobi." Palpatine had begun his sentence facing Qui-Gon, but as he comes to the end of it, he leans towards Obi-Wan conspiratorially.

Qui-Gon senses their shared tension snap across their bond like a wired time bomb, and clamps down on the irritation that threatens to boil to the surface. "We are honoured, Senator," he says serenely. "But Obi-Wan has many studies to complete, and we are on active duty. We will speak to the Council about this proposal. It is quite…novel."

Immediately, Palpatine's lined features drip with disappointment. "Naturally," he murmurs. "It would be a pity not to cultivate your talents, Obi-Wan. I can see you have a talent for negotiation."

Obi-Wan stares back at him, unsure about the use of his first name, and strangely hollow regarding his inability to speak and negotiate.

"Oh, don't be ashamed of it! Not all negotiation is through speech." Palpatine is neither pitying nor condescending. He burns with a righteous flame, as if convincing Obi-Wan of his virtues is the most important thing in the galaxy. The black pits of his eyes are wide with indignation at the mere suggestion that Obi-Wan's condition is a fault.

Qui-Gon clears his throat, glancing at his chrono and rising, indicating Obi-Wan to do the same. "Apologies, Senator. I'm afraid we will have to take our leave - we have another pressing appointment. May the Force be with you." He bows elegantly at the waist, and Obi-Wan follows, a half-beat behind.

"Of course," Papatine says effusively. He orders at the attendant to show them the way out, and calls out a farewell at their retreating backs. "Do tell the Council. This might be the most effective idea we've thought of in years."

Outside the Senate, in the warm sunshine and blaring discordance of traffic, Obi-Wan allows himself to be shepherded into the Temple aircar, and spares a concerned glance up at Qui-Gon when the tall Jedi remains silent.

Qui-Gon does not notice. He is far too preoccupied with the reasons as to how and why Palpatine knows Obi-Wan cannot speak. He absentmindedly tugs on Obi-Wan's padawan braid, causing a silent yelp from his apprentice. A scowl forms beneath his beard.

If Qui-Gon Jinn has learnt anything in these past few months, he is extremely protective of his padawan. And he is not about to let some decaying politician snatch Obi-Wan away from him.

(:~:)

Fortunately, Mace Windu agrees.

"He what?" The Korun Jedi's baritone is a comforting rumble in the relative quiet of the healers' halls.

"Palpatine's attempting to exercise more control over the Jedi Order," Qui-Gon states plainly, turning back to the closed door behind which a soul healer fusses over his padawan.

A snort. "He wouldn't be the first politician to try," Mace sighs. "But we cannot refuse the request outright…it would make the Order seem aloof."

Qui-Gon glances at the medi-droid systematically winding bandages around his friend's arm. "What did you do, Mace? Run into a deathstick den?"

"No, my friend," Mace chuckles. "I walked serenely into a Hutt palace."

Shared laughter. Sometimes Qui-Gon misses this easy camaraderie between them. They had gotten into their fair share of scrapes as younglings, but one had attained a seat on the Council, while the other named most insufferable Jedi of the generation.

Arm treated, Mace paces off to the Council chamber, leaving Qui-Gon to wait for Obi-Wan alone. He closes his eyes, seeking a centre in the bustle of the healing ward, but infinite possibilities dance in the Force before his eyes, washing away his bedrock, leaving him no place to anchor–

The door hisses open, and Avarin steps out, accompanied by the soul healer, who bows once and then goes to her other duties.

Qui-Gon rises, cloak swinging. "How is he?" he inquires, striving to sound ineffectual.

Avarin gives Qui-Gon a look that shows he sees right though him. He smiles, and relents. "Well enough," he admits. "But Obi-Wan is exhausted by the procedure. We could keep him here tonight, or if you prefer, you could take him back to your own quarters.

A slow nod. "And the nightmares?"

"I'm sorry, Qui." Avarin's expression is contrite. "We cannot heal him fully. He must face his fears on his own. Is that not the Jedi way?"

"Yes," Qui-Gon replies, closing his eyes for a moment. He had hoped…but that does not matter now; this is a trial, one of many to come. "I'll take him back to quarters. He will rest better there."

One of Obi-Wan's azure irises peeks out from under his eyelids when his master enters the room, but he does not seem to have enough energy to do anything else except muster a small grin. Qui-Gon lifts him onto his feet, but finds that Obi-Wan has the malleability of wet hoi-noodles. Avarin hides a smile as Qui-Gon somehow maneuvers his apprentice onto his own broad back.

"I have no need of your annoying maudlin sentiments," Qui-Gon snaps at Avarin, without any real fire in his tone. Supremely uncaring, Obi-Wan wraps his arms around his master's neck and gives a contented little sigh, head pillowed on the broad, cloaked shoulder.

Avarin tilts his head at the little scene and says absolutely nothing, grinning madly instead.

"Shut up," Qui-Gon mutters, as he pushes past Avarin with his apprentice on his back. "Woolly-hearted bantha."

(:~:)

Qui-Gon decides the Force must really hate him.

He supposes that it would have been a little too much to ask for an undisturbed journey from healers' halls to quarters. Obi-Wan is a dead weight on his back, and the snores in his ear are beginning to get under his skin. Qui-Gon had even chosen the least-walked path through the Temple, in order to avoid any prying glances.

He runs into his former master instead.

"Qui-Gon," Dooku states, raising one cultured eyebrow at the spectacle.

"Master," Qui-Gon returns, feigning indifference. He does not bow, but this is only because he is already bent over slightly from the solid weight of a growing padawan on his back. This is most decidedly not how he had envisioned next meeting his former master.

Dooku's eyes glitter with cool enjoyment. "Is your padawan quite well?"

"We have just left the healers. Thank you for your concern." He is not answering that loaded question directly, thank you very much. The empty corridor around them only emphasises Dooku's amusement and Qui-Gon's carefully detached aura.

"Before you carry on," – and here Dooku smirks – "I wish to remind you that you still have not come to dinner with my padawan and I, as you promised."

Wishing his hands were free so he could fold them into his sleeves, Qui-Gon refrains from mentioning that he did not promise anything of the sort. Instead, he dips his head – jostling Obi-Wan slightly as he does so – and murmurs, "We would be honoured, Master Dooku."

Dooku gives the barest of nods in return. "Tomorrow night. I'm sure you remember at what hour I dine."

And then the Shadow sweeps away down the corridor, his imposing Force-Signature emphasised by the deliberate click-click of his boot-heels.

Obi-Wan smiles a little in his sleep and snores directly into his master's ear.

With a muffled groan, Qui-Gon storms in the opposite direction, brooding a black swathe in the Force in his wake.

Chapter Text

When Obi-Wan straightens his tabards, his reflection does the same, smoothing the rough cream cloth into sharp lines. He tilts his head to bare the length of his braid to the light, fingering the silk markers. Purple at the base, for a lesson taught by student to master. Another twist further, another stepping stone on the path of student, master, and the Force, is a marker of black lined with white. His first Trial of Spirit. Eir.

That particular image requires a centering breath or two to wipe from his mind. Obi-Wan tilts his head, staring into his own mirrored irises. He searches for…something…in those azure depths, but sees nothing of his thoughts, of his identity there. There is only the Jedi padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi. He might as well be staring into the eyes of a stranger.

A sharp rap on the 'fresher door brings his focus painfully back to the present moment. His master's voice reaches him, slightly muffled behind durasteel.

"As much as I would enjoy continuing to indulge your vanity, Padawan," Qui-Gon says dryly, "It would me unwise to tarry any longer. Come. It is nigh on the seventh hour, and we must face each trial together."

Master Qui-Gon has become rather sarcastic of late.

Obi-Wan bangs twice on the door to acknowledge he has heard – gaining him a mental swat through the bond as punishment for lack of restraint – and gives his reflection one last parting examination. His stomach rumbles uneasily. Food has never failed to motivate him into action, but his appetite seems to have shrunk this evening. He enters the main living area exuding an aura of perpetual doom.

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow at him from where he stands by the table. "Padawan, I think that is rather too morose a face to be wearing when one has a dinner to attend. We can't have you causing our hosts to lose their appetites."

The padawan in question shoots him a look that screams murder and apprehension in equal parts.

"…Not that Master Dooku ever would," Qui-Gon comments, sliding a fragrant cup of tea towards him. "Drink. It will calm your stomach." Obi-Wan gulps down the near-scalding liquid without protest, too unsettled to be bothered by his master's perceptiveness. Master and padawan don their cloaks, raising the cowls somberly, like criminals preparing to attend their own execution. At the door, Qui-Gon rests a hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder.

"Worry not overmuch. Master Dooku prefers to win, but you are still young. Perhaps he will not be overly stern."

Obi-Wan cannot help but think that his master is being ever so slightly over-optimistic.

(:~:)

"My, padawan Kenobi, where did you learn your manners?" Dooku folds his elegant hands together over the polished wood of the dinner table. "Certainly not from your master." His grey eyes glint as he turns to Qui-Gon.

Obi-Wan forces himself to chew, swallow, and place his fork and knife neatly on either side of his plate before picking up his stylus. The food, though delectable, sticks like resin in this throat. He wishes he could offer the hawk-eyed Sentinel the same trust he has in every other Jedi master, but he cannot help feeling a twist of discomfort at Dooku's words. Not a single syllable leaves Dooku's lips without purpose, it seems. A prime example would be the previous comment. Were it intended as a compliment for Obi-Wan, it would do the opposite for his master; but should it have been a jest at Qui-Gon, it would put Obi-Wan in no more a favourable position.

But Obi-Wan is not a sniveling child anymore. That he had promised himself two night previous, standing before Eir's tree. So he finishes his answer with a flourish, reversing the flimsy and sliding it over to his master's master with an ever-so-jaunty dip of the head.

I seek to emulate my master in all things.

Dooku's eyebrows raise infinitesimally, even as Obi-Wan senses the barest tremor of pride dance across the muffled length of the bond. Qui-Gon does not pause in his eating, nor does he lower adamantine shields, but his eyes sparkle with amusement.

"As all padawans should," Dooku comments, flicking the flimsy back to its owner with wrists far too agile to appear normal. "I teach Huei much the same." He glances over his shoulder, to where his padawan steps smartly forward with their second course.

The Nautolan padawan somehow accomplishes a deep bow, despite having two full plates balanced on his wiry arms, and another plate and bottle of wine in his hands. His dark blue head-tails sway elegantly over his shoulders as he straightens, seemingly without effort. "Of course, Master," he murmurs. Then he falls silent once more as he collects their cutlery and now-empty plates and replaces them, his opaque slate-grey eyes studiously blank.

As Huei disappears into the kitchen, Qui-Gon examines the food before him. The food served on this evening is much like Dooku himself; elegantly presented, sharp in flavour, and with no care for expense. The quarters themselves are a mastery of taste from a man who does not need to exercise restraint, and yet abhors all that is gaudy or vibrant. Everything, from the sleek Alderaanian white marble floors, to the elegant curve of the black sofa – with a covering of Tomuon cloth that, if sold on the black market, could possibly start a war with the credits gained – to the crystal display shelf of mission trophies mounted between the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, everything, everything conveys a man of power, refined tastes, with the funds to provide for them.

Dooku raises his new fork – there had been three at each setting at the beginning of the meal – and probes the neat grey cone. "Young glimmerfish," he pronounces, raising his fork so Obi-Wan can stare in barely-veiled, horrified fascination at the tiny, glowing worm-like forms on it. "A rarity, caught so young. And a sauce of reduced hoi-broth…Huei has done admirably."

"Your padawan prepared this meal?" Qui-Gon attempts to keep the surprise from his voice, but he should have known he cannot hide from his former master.

"Why, yes," Dooku replies, lifting the first forkful to his lips. "One of several reasons why I selected him. His culinary skills may even surpass yours, my former padawan."

"Our tastes are somewhat different," Qui-Gon says airily. "I am glad you were able to find a padawan so suited to your teachings."

"It was fortunate." Dooku's elegant fingers reach towards a bottle of aged wine. "Wine, Qui-Gon? This particular vintage is horrendously difficult to procure these days…and you know how partial I am to it."

Qui-Gon makes some reply or the other, and brings the conversation into galactic politics.

Obi-Wan attempts to stay centered on the conversation, but finds the mess of inter-system political jargon rather hard to interpret. He makes a mental note to look it up in the Archives at a later date. The mess of fish and hoi-broth on the end of his fork appears dubious at best, but he clamps down on the churning in his stomach as he was taught to do and delicately slips the forkful down his throat.

Oh. That wasn't too bad.

A trifle spiced, perhaps, but the burning sensation on his tongue and back of his throat is quite pleasant. If he could only get over the slightly slimy texture of the fish itself…

A strange sort of fog descends over his mind. Obi-Wan doesn't quite know what it is, but perhaps it is some side-effect of the dish.

As he eats methodically, Obi-Wan finds his thoughts turning to Dooku. There is something chilling about the Sentinel, in the manner with which he speaks, in the precise, elegant movements of his fingers when they move to illustrate a point. Even his Force signature is scented with metal, like a river of iced silver. Just as a Form II lightsaber kata is one effortless, reserved movement after the other, everything about Dooku suggests a purpose, a streamlined intent. And what of Huei? Even his padawan serves his master's every whim…

Obi-Wan is suddenly very glad Dooku is not his master.

"Padawan."

Obi-Wan jerks out of his stupor, to find Dooku staring at him with an air of amusement. A quick glance at an irate Qui-Gon has the blood rushing to his cheeks; apparently his lapse of attention had been all too obvious. Fighting against his embarrassment, Obi-Wan tries to take a breath.

And finds that he can't.

"Obi-Wan!" Qui-Gon latches on to the growing panic in the bond, his expression melting from one of mild reprimand to concern. His padawan, for his part, can do nothing save gesture at his throat and shake his head helplessly.

He cannot breathe.

Even Dooku appears perturbed; while he had initially appeared slightly incredulous, a sharp frown now deepens the lines of his face into a stern mask.

He cannot breathe. His tongue feels too large for his mouth, and the drumbeat in his head accelerates into a maddened fervor of irregular thunder-strikes, and he lurches backwards onto the marbled floor, terror flooding his veins with ice despite all his training–

The Sentinel is anything but not efficient. "Quickly, Qui-Gon," he hisses, searching fingers probing the sides of Obi-Wan's swollen throat. And Obi-Wan has no time to marvel at the sudden familiarity with which the two Jedi masters interact, for Qui-Gon's hands are suddenly at his temples, and the shadowed clouds over his vision grow, and grow again, massing like a storm front over his failing sight, and the heavens are cloven open and the Force closes over his head like a flood from above.

(:~:)

The Force is funny.

So muses Obi-Wan as he snuggles deeper into his blankets. It's nice here, with warmth all around him, the Force all bubbly and giggling – though some small part of him thinks this is slightly strange – comforting darkness, eyelids far too heavy to open, a delicious current of air entering his nose and flowing down the back of his throat, and the soft bleep, bleep of medical equipment…

Wait. What?

With a distinctly foreboding feeling that he's been had, Obi-wan pushes open his eyes.

Sat comfortably beside his padawan's bedside, Qui-Gon Jinn looks coolly down at him. "And how are you feeling?" he asks jovially, although hidden beneath the layers of humour, his clear blue irises sparkle with relief.

Obi-Wan decides that all these bright lights, drugs in his system, and his master's cheerful tone are simply too unfair, and chooses to bury his face back into his pillow instead. For a moment, he wonders if his master will be frustrated with him; but strong fingers thread through his hair, and Obi-Wan smiles infinitesimally. Oh. All right, then. He struggles to stay awake, tugging at Qui-Gon's sleeve when the hand on his hair brushes past his braid and makes to leave.

But Qui-Gon seems to understand his silent query. His voice is conversational, but gentle. "It seems you are rather violently allergic to hoi-broth. We were forced to nudge you into in a healing trance to conserve oxygen before the healers reached you and cleared your throat. It was quite something you pulled, Padawan…it was sufficient to engender Master Dooku's concern, and although padawan Tori hid it well, he was frantic with worry – needlessly, if I may add – over whether he would be reprimanded for his part in the matter."

One slit-like eye peers up at Qui-Gon from where it is half-buried in white. The faintest notion of embarrassment seeps into the Force.

"I daresay it was a resounding success on all fronts." Obi-Wan cannot see Qui-Gon clearly, but he can hear the smile in his master's voice. "I do not foresee Master Dooku inviting us to dinner again any time soon, and it is fortunate you have encountered your allergy here, in the safety of the temple, rather than starting a war by insulting our hosts at a diplomatic convention."

Obi-Wan plants his face back into the blankets, wishing he were anywhere but here.

Qui-Gon's voice drops yet softer. "All the same," – hand on padawan braid – "Do not do that again, my very, very young apprentice."

The Force is fluffy, now. Drowsily, Obi-Wan resolves that he quite likes it, and falls asleep to his master's chuckle.

(:~:)

When Obi-Wan next wakes, his blurred vision catches the hem of Dooku's sable cloak as it flutters out the door. Not fully knowing why, he is instantly on alert, forcing his eyes to widen against the burning light–

A slim hand drops over his vision. "Not so quickly, young one," a light voice intones. When he shifts against the smooth palm, the voice tsks disapprovingly. "You have your master's stubbornness and his unbecoming haste."

A deep sigh. "Tahl…"

The hand covering Obi-Wan's eyes twitches. "Do not turn my name into an excuse to whinge."

His master sounds remarkably resigned. "I do not whinge."

Tahl's crisp tones are cutting as a whip. "No, you don't. You brood. You're brooding now, simply because of what your former master said – and I only caught the end of that, by the way. I wondered why he sought to leave so soon after I appeared."

Obi-Wan breaks into a smile as he throws up shaky mental shields to hide his delight. A pause, in which one Force-signature radiates victory and the other defeat, and then light floods his vision. Above him, two heads are silhouetted against the afternoon light from the window, both with long hair, though one quite obviously has more delicate features than the other.

That does not stop him from thinking they both look somewhat female.

A sharp mental poke from the figure on the right. Ah. That one is Qui-Gon, then.

"Don't laugh," Qui-Gon mutters.

"I'll do precisely what I do or do not want to do," Tahl retorts, adjusting Obi-Wan's bed to a more upright position. "And you are doing a wonderful job of distracting me from the purpose for which I came."

"And what is that?"

"Curious?"

"Tahl, must we banter like younglings–" Qui-Gon snaps his mouth shut when he notices his padawan is following the adults' conversation quite keenly, attention snapping from one party to the next like a bolo-ball fan captivated by a particularly violent match.

In the slightly awkward silence, Tahl heaves a sigh, and straightens, folding elegant arms into opposite sleeves. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon stare at her with equally baffled expressions on their faces, perplexed at the sudden formality. Tahl smiles indulgently at the padawan who sits poker-straight against his pillows, hands folded on his lap, and the Jedi master opposite her, who leans forward, broad hands planted on the bedside railing, and speaks.

"My boys" she says, smiling all the while, "Let me introduce you to my padawan."

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's expressions morph from befuddlement to surprise and delight, respectively.

The door slides open at Tahl's wave, and in steps a pink-skinned Mon Calamari girl, her wide silver eyes brimming with emotion, a tinge of darker red across her cheeks where she blushes, shy. And over the ridges of her left sound receptor, a string of silka beads dangle towards her neck.

Obi-Wan's delight transforms into pure joy, sunlight dancing in the Force between him and Tahl's new padawan.

"I'm so sorry to have kept it a secret, Obi!" the girl babbles, shaking her orange-pink hands placatingly. "Master Tahl told me two days ago, and–" At her master's glance, she blushes furiously and falls silent.

Tahl steps forward and places a hand on her shoulder. Turning to the other master/padawan pair, she says formally, "My Padawan, Bant Eerin."

Qui-Gon bows graciously, and his apprentice does the same, albeit with a massive grin stretching across his cheeks. In the ensuing flurried conversation between their padawans – aided by a bit of flimsy scavenged from a drawer somewhere – Qui-Gon pulls Tahl aside.

"Why did you not tell me?" he murmurs, glancing over his shoulder at a particularly animated laugh from Bant. There is no judgement in the question, but Tahl seems to understand his doubt, anyhow.

"You have an accident-prone padawan of your own to take care of," she whispers back, shielding their conversation carefully. "And with everything that has happened in the past two days, I did not want to disturb you unless it was absolutely necessary." Her gold eyes shimmer in the half light, sincere.

Qui-Gon nods slowly, still somewhat dissatisfied. "Very well," he grinds out. He glances at the wall chrono and turns back towards the padawan."Obi-Wan and I are expected soon. We must go."

A suddenly solemn whisper reaches him from behind. "Try not to get yourself killed on this mission, Qui."

For a while, he does not reply, informing the padawans of their impending separation instead. Obi-Wan immediately perks up at the mention of a mission, while Bant morosely prepares to leave.

While the padawans are preoccupied with their farewells, Qui-Gon steels himself and meets Tahl's searching gaze. He flounders in the Force for a reply that encompasses what he wishes to tell her, and yet will not push the boundaries of the Code. "You know I try not to," he manages. He knows that is not enough, but it is all he can promise.

There is a moment when he believes she has accepted his words; but when Bant is in the corridor, and Obi-Wan preoccupied with organizing his gear, Tahl turns on the threshold, projecting her own farewell to him through the Force.

Do or do not. The words burn fierce in the Force, a bright afterglow, even when her footsteps fade down the corridor and she melds into the thousands of separate Force-signatures in the Temple itself. There is no try.

As the afternoon light spills over the small room and the Jedi within it, Obi-Wan is far too preoccupied with his elation in his imminent withdrawal from the Healers' Halls to notice that his master is is rather more reserved than usual.

(:~:)

It is often the case that when a master and padawan present themselves before the Jedi Council, they form a twin star system, revolving about a mutual centre, surrounded by the twelve suns of the Council itself. Generations upon generations of paired stars have stood there, at the center of the circled flower forever preserved in larmalstone, their separate luminance melding into a single stalwart wall of light that binds student and teacher together, no matter the circumstances that bring them before the Council. That is the solitary comfort that a grueling council session can always be counted upon to provide.

Not this time.

Qui-Gon feels Obi-Wan's Force-signature retract in on itself, like a baby krayt curling into itself for warmth and protection.

Tamesis Dooku and Huei Tori bow in greeting, but their presence on the left hemisphere of the circled chamber is a disruption in the tranquil pool that should have formed had only Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan stood in the centre of the circle.

Obi-Wan glances at his master, his own fists clenched tight against the floundering Force, and finds to his bewilderment that Qui-Gon seems utterly unaffected. Instead, the older Jedi simply bows first to Master Yoda, then to the other master/padawan pair, before facing the Council serenely.

With a shock similar to being submerged in ice water, Obi-Wan realises that Qui-Gon had been expecting this, and yet had not told him. His concentration wavers for a moment; but determination floods him unbidden, from unknown sources in the everlasting Force, and he centers himself savagely on the moment, distilling the very air into glass. Qui-Gon's head tilts minutely towards his apprentice beside him when Obi-Wan's Force-signature cools into one of tempered steel, like a star newly-forged from fire and brimstone.

Mace Windu glances from one sundered star to the next, brows furrowed, but chooses not to comment on the matter.

"A matter has come to the Council's attention," he declares, his voice a deep reverberation in both the air and the Force. "This matter has evolved into a situation meriting investiagation." As usual, Mace is blunt and to the point. "The Council has deliberated, and we have elected to send two masters and their respective padawans, with the addition of a knight, the purpose of whom I will explain in time."

Kit Fisto steps forward on the right, his headtails swinging gracefully as he bows. Obi-Wan hides a flash of self-annoyance in the Force. He had not noticed the knight's presence at all. But he has no time to further berate himself, for Mace plows straight on, intent on conveying as much information in as little time as possible.

"The situation is thus. There is a new educational establishment on Ventrux, recently built. This school, the Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children, prides itself in its elite education system and dedication to holistic care. Although many of the students currently enrolled in the ZAAGC are children of employees of Arbor Industries – the planet is the corporation's headquarters – a sizeable proportion of them are from other systems, who board there for most of the academic year, or orphaned children under the protection of Arbor Industries' charitable organisations."

Through the empty, calm state he usually enters while absorbing information, Obi-Wan muses that he can see where this is going. And he does not like it at all.

Plo Koon is the next to speak. "The complication is that in the last standard year alone, a dozen students have dropped out of the school for unknown reasons. Their parents have since complained of various long-term health problems their children have acquired…some of which should be impossible for the species involved by their medical definition. According to our contact, the academy is suspiciously tight-lipped about releasing information. The details we have is unreliable at best, but given that we did not what to overtly show Jedi interest, there is nothing more we can discern save for investigating ourselves."

"I see why sending a padawan would be useful." Qui-Gon interrupts, with nary a thought for the disapproving glares of several council members. "What I fail to understand is why two are needed. Surely one undercover padawan posing as a student is sufficient?"

At this, a tremor of surprise runs through the circled masters. Mace Windu leans forward once more, glancing at Dooku. "Tamesis, did you not inform Master Jinn of the particulars of this mission?"

"Master Dooku told me the bare skeleton, no more," Qui-Gon says, before his former master can reply with some nicety or the other. Dooku, for his part, raises one silver eyebrow as former padawan digs himself into yet another hole before the Council. "Let me be blunt: why is my padawan's presence necessary for this mission?"

Such blatant disrespect sends a crackle of ozone in the Force. The lines around Mace's mouth deepen into a frown. "Padawan Kenobi is integral to the mission because of the nature of the Zan Arbor Academy itself."

Qui-Gon falls silent, jaw snapping shut. That still does not prevent his cerulean eyes from burning dangerously as he stares back at his old friend.

"As I said previously," Mace continues to the chamber in general, as if Qui-Gon were non-existent, "Zan Arbor Academy prides itself in its dedication to holistic care. Therefore, the school has a separate department specializing in education for students with difficulties that prevent them from learning or communicating in the same way as their peers. Your apprentice is…uniquely...suited to infiltrate this department."

Before him, Qui-Gon straightens even more, his spine held stiffly as he squares his shoulders. Beside him, his apprentice stirs uneasily.

"Qui-Gon," Mace sighs, his voice softening infinitesimally, "Of the dozen children affected, ten came from this specialized department."

Obi-Wan stares up at the Korun Jedi, and knows that perhaps the natural thing to do would be to be frightened, to be numb. But instead, he finds a strange sort of acceptance there, hovering just beyond his awareness, like the sound of waves on the seashore fading into the borders of his consciousness. Without quite knowing why, he shuffles minutely to his left and tugs on Qui-Gon's sleeve.

Qui-Gon had had his mouth half-open to retort, but the warmth that suddenly floods the bond glues his tongue in place. Obi-Wan makes no mention of the discord that had wracked their bond minutes ago. Qui-Gon's padawan anchors them securely in the Force, neither rejecting nor accepting the situation, but resting in the moment.

A hoarse chuckle sounds from Yoda's direction. The diminutive Jedi had said nothing for the present, but now he jabs a clawed finger at Qui-Gon and growls, "Done well, your padawan has. Learn from him, you should."

Faced with such an intimidating presence, Qui-Gon can do nothing but bow and murmur and acquiesce. As he straightens, he sends a tendril of gratitude to Obi-Wan, and is rewarded with a warm glow of contentment.

"So." Mace Windu does not mince words, and he is not about to now. "The mission details: Padawans Tori and Kenobi will pose as new students, in the normal and specialized streams respectively. A position has become available for the professor of Inter-system Relations, which Master Jinn will take – with some strings pulled by our contact within, of course." Mace swivels to face the others, resting his elbows on his knees and folding his hands together. "Master Dooku and Knight Fisto will serve as the new students' guardians. Master Dooku will be Padawan Kenobi's grandfather," – he turns to Kit – "and Kight Fisto will be Padawan Tori's older brother. This has the added convenience that Master Dooku's shadow skills can be used for surveillance in the hours with which he is not keeping up the guise of grandfather."

A pause. Obi-Wan blinks, perfectly comprehending the word grandfather, but not understanding the strings attached. Qui-Gon's hand finds his shoulder, and tightens into a vice-like grip. The Force slews between them, hidden from the eyes of the council, but it sends them reeling nonetheless.

"Are we all clear with the mission details?" Mace asks. And is not a question, not really. More like the judge's hammer falling to declare a sentence.

Master and padawan stare at each other, on a diagonal plane of fragile glass, and face the council together, bowing as one. As the final arrangements are discussed, transport decided upon, false names and identity-chips fabricated, Obi-Wan glances to his left, and in a single second caught between the eclipse of the setting sun and the tremor in the Force, he meets Dooku's gaze.

Oh.

There is something grandfatherly there. But it is hidden behind too many conflicting shades of grey to see clearly.

Oh.

Master Dooku is fragmented.

Yes. But contemplation of that would have to be postponed for a later date.

The Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children awaits.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan stands alone in the deserted topside starboard viewing platform, watching the Hydian Way stretch out before him in the infinite spectrum of hyperspace, a timeless music score with jewelled stars as notes and supernovas and nebulae accidentals and ornaments. Strange, he muses. Are we drifting on the currents of a Force, or that of a song? Or are they one and the same?

The hiss of the door sliding open is a murmur in the still air. A bright lantern in the Force paces forwards with steady steps, but Obi-Wan does not seem to notice, leaning to press his left hand against cool transparisteel instead.

"We will be reverting to realspace in under five minutes." Qui-Gon's voice is a comforting glow in the Force, a flickering flame in the cold light of the stars. "We are deep in the Thesme sector; in fact, we passed Mandalorian space not long ago."

Staring ahead, Obi-Wan nods acknowledgement, understanding and not, as a child expects the leaves to fall in autumn, without fully knowing why. Five minutes. Five minutes until they must separate in their forking path in the Force.

He expects Qui-Gon to reprimand him for this lapse in attention; but his master simply shifts in place and places his broad right hand on the transparisteel in much the same position as his apprentice's much smaller one.

The pitted duracrete floor of the public interstellar transport trembles beneath their boots, the vibration travelling up the viewing window and buzzing in their fingers. Apart from the blank durasteel wall and door on one side, the platform is framed by a single unbroken pane of transparisteel, curving from one side of the wall to the other in a hemisphere of brilliant colours. There is no artificial light here, and none is needed, for the watery light of the stars bathes the hall in the ancient luminance of a hundred different times. Stardust silhouettes the two Jedi against the galaxy, throwing their fettered shadows in a long, twisting tail behind them.

Obi-Wan tilts his head to one side, enraptured by the luminance playing over the edges and knuckles of his fingers, so soft and unlined compared to the scarred and calloused hand of his master. Qui-Gon's palm and long fingers are limned with ebony. The hand of a warrior. Obi-Wan can envision it grasping the hilt of a lightsaber, delivering a devastating strike; but paradoxically, that same hand has also stroked his own padawan braid with unparalleled gentleness. Obi-Wan's hand is as unmarked as fresh parchment; Qui-Gon's is the equivalent of a well-worn traveller's logbook.

Why, then, is the Force so unsettled?

Clarity blossoms abruptly in the Force, bittersweet.

I do not know what I am defined by.

A tug on the bond. Despite himself, Obi-Wan smiles in gratitude. His master cannot possible have heard his thoughts – Obi-Wan's inability to express them as words through their bond prevents that – but Qui-Gon is far too accomplished in reading his padawan's moods.

"Do not look to the coming days with trepidation," the tall Jedi says lightly. The muted light of hyperspace draws patterns in his beard as he stares out into the glowing depths. "Face each challenge as it presents itself, and the Force will provide a solution."

Qui-Gon does not know what to expect when he turns his gaze to his apprentice; but he is unprepared for the surge of pride that swells up within him as Obi-Wan stares back steadily, even defiantly, the smallest quirk of a smile on those silent lips. They face each other for a moment as equals, each with a hand still pressed to the transparisteel.

The smallest shudder in the Force that reverberates through their feet to thrum at the tips of their fingers.

The curling watercolours of hyperspace hover on the brink, and then slip off the edge of a mortal coil of time like tendrils of ink floating in the current, melting away to an infinite sky of chilled stars, diamonds on velvet. The frozen light casts the Jedi in half-shadow, statues standing on the borders of two worlds, clinging to the freedom of the stars with outstretched fingers.

Qui-Gon lowers his hand and drops into a crouch, reaching out to take his apprentice by the shoulders. "I will not be there to advise you as much as I would like, Padawan," he says regretfully. "There is much on this mission you will have to learn to handle yourself, but do not let that define you."

Obi-Wan's shoulder moves under Qui-Gon's fingers as he, too, lifts his hand from the viewing window. The defiance is still there, in those eyes that are already too old for a child and too young for an adult, but it is a reflection of the maverick spirit often seen in Qui-Gon's own clear gaze.

Still, Qui-Gon cannot help but give his padawan's shoulders one last shake. "And remember, Obi-Wan, you shall never truly be alone. I am here," he murmurs firmly, tapping his apprentice's forehead. "And I do not need words to understand you."

He senses Obi-Wan shift in the Force, like the bright disc of the sun blazing in all its glory as the last shadowed curve of a solar eclipse slides off the golden coin.

"Prepare yourself." He hates what he has to do next, but it is necessary to maintain the deception of the mission.

Qui-Gon's fingers stroke the growing length of Obi-Wan's padawan braid one last time, then move to gently unwind the three intertwined paths of student, teacher, and Force. Obi-Wan's shudder of repulsion is palpable in the bond as well as to the cool air, but Qui-Gon takes the emotion and turns it over in the Force, smoothing it into acceptance. He places the coloured markers and beads in a hidden pouch in his belt, one by one, as if they are priceless, irreplaceable gems. Thankfully, the longer strip of hair is still short enough to bind into Obi-Wan's nerf-tail. The Jedi master's deft fingers gather his apprentice's locks into one, before securing the tie once more. As Qui-Gon stands, he gives the one slightly longer stub sticking out of the back of the nerf-tail one last pat, as if to reassure Obi-Wan. Or to reassure himself. He is not quite sure which.

They stand together for a moment more, a portrait framed by the celestial sea of the galaxy.

And then they turn, and go towards their separate paths.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan steps out of the airtaxi, and stares up at the Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children.

It doesn't matter that he cannot speak; should he have been able to, he would have had no words to describe the structure before him.

The ZAAGC is…well…wrong.

The school itself is comprised of one large complex, up an imposing series of steps. But the design itself has not the comforting, familiar solidness of traditional themes, or the awe-inspiring lines of futuristic architecture. It is as if an artist has taken a rough sketch of a building and slathered it with water, blurring borders and eliminating corners. What is left is something entirely shapeless and yet strangely elegant, like grey silk drawn through water.

As he follows Dooku up the steps and through the artistically engraved steel doors, Obi-Wan cannot stop an image forming of grey water closing over a drowning man's head.

In the starkly blank corridor beyond, a woman steps forward, wearing a uniform and heels and a smile. Her name, like her face, is rather forgettable; Obi-Wan finds himself trailing along after her and his 'grandfather' as they make their way through the white halls. All the classrooms have wide windows facing the corridors. Obi-Wan stares at the rows of navy-blue-clothed children within, some engaged in discussion, some listening raptly…or not…as a professor or other points at a holoprojector.

Their guide ushers them into a waiting room before the principal's office and takes her leave, murmuring many an apology for the need to wait. Obi-Wan looks across the chamber and meets the cool gaze of Huei Tori. Hiding any recognition is not difficult; Obi-Wan almost surprises himself with the ease with which he wipes his face clean of any emotion save a mild curiosity. This had all been planned beforehand; by arriving separately, the two Jedi teams would minimise suspicion that they were related in any sense.

Now for the second part of the deception. Kit Fisto rises from his seat beside Huei and strides over to them. His affable smile seems unchanged by his new identity. "Kit Yoru," he says by way of introduction, his deep, accented voice booming in the small room. "This is my younger brother, Huei Yoru."

Grasping Kit's extended hand, Dooku returns the introduction. "Count Asa. My grandson and heir, Obi-Wan Asa."

With surname changes all around, the Jedi Council had decided it best that Dooku's first name remained unknown as well. The sentinel has a reputation, even outside of the Order. It would be best if he presented himself as some minor Count from a distant region.

Although he had been expecting the title and name, Obi-Wan still feels an unsettling swoop in his stomach, as though it protests the unfamiliarity. He bows shallowly, as he was instructed to. He knows he looks the part, at least; to his annoyance, his tunic and small cape are stitched elaborately with silver thread, and while Dooku's cloak and robes are purest black, they hang with the heaviness of handmade, expensive cloth. In contrast, Kit and Huei's clothing have the well-cut but worn texture and pattern of a family with far more modest finances.

"Pleased to meet you, your lordship," Kit replies, opaque black eyes widening slightly, as if in surprise. "I have no title but that of an average businessman."

"A title is nothing," Dooku replies, somehow conveying easy power with his tiny dip of the head in Kit's direction. "A legacy passed on to the next generation, nothing more."

A sharp hiss of pressurised hydraulics as the Principal's door slides open. A young woman of no older than eighteen steps out. "The principal can see you and your grandson now, Count Asa," she says. She makes no mention that Kit and Huei had obviously arrived first. Apparently countship has its privileges.

"Of course." Dooku turns to Kit. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr Yoru."

As Obi-Wan follows Dooku through the door, he catches Huei's gaze once more, and finds to his shock that those opaque, slate grey eyes are not empty like he had expected.

They hold fear.

Fear of what, Obi-Wan cannot be certain. He allows his stare to become questioning, but Huei simply shakes his head once – dark blue headtails swinging – and turns away.

It is not doubt that chills Obi-Wan as the sheet of polished steel separates him from the chamber behind him. It is a sense that there is too much he does not know.

(:~:)

The meeting and subsequent tour is short, brief, and entirely too overwhelming. Firstly, they were welcomed by the principal, a gushing woman of advancing years who flirted quite shamelessly with Dooku. Then, Obi-Wan had been shepherded – and that is the only word to describe it – into a tour by the beaming young lady who had called them into the principal's office in the first place. She had introduced herself as Hika, just Hika, and rambled on happily about the academy and its system, all the while speaking only to Obi-Wan and acting as if Dooku was not there. That, in fact, had been the only high point of the entire tour – watching the frown on Master Dooku's face deepening ceaselessly as Hika prattled on, seemingly unaffected by Obi-Wan's silence.

And then she had suddenly done an about-face as they reached the special needs division dormitories, and announced it was time for Obi-Wan to 'hug your grandpa goodbye.' Obi-Wan had frozen, mortified at the very thought of embracing the stern sentinel, but Dooku leant over, placed a hand on his hair (Obi-Wan could feel the callouses from his 'saber) and murmured in an perfectly colourless voice, "Be good, Obi-Wan. Do your teachers proud," before pivoting on a heel and sweeping away.

Obi-Wan's 'grandfather' had barely rounded the corner before Hika pressed a button in the wall, declared the room beyond Obi-Wan's, informed him classes would end in a few minutes' time, said she would have his bags sent up, and reminded him to go to dinner, all in one breath.

And then she had left. Finally.

Obi-Wan turns a slow circle, examining the grey bedspread, polished steel cabinet, and ebony woodite desk on one side of the room. The other side of the chamber would have been a perfect mirror image, if it is not for the posters haphazardly pasted over the walls, tidbits and bits of junk strewn over the bed, and a mess of cheap holo-books and 'pads stacked three-deep on the groaning desk. A door to a 'fresher lies on the opposite end of the room from the exit. The ZAAGC is a fully-boarding establishment; Obi-Wan will have to remain here on weekdays, and go 'home' on weekends.

He shudders to think what home would be like, if Dooku is there.

Reaching up to undo the clasp on his cape, Obi-Wan folds the garment neatly and places it on a corner of his bed. The garish green-and-silver square barely alleviates the empty, anadorned blankness of his side of the room.

It is only when Obi-Wan finds he can hear the soft tick-tick of the oldstyle antique chrono on the wall does he realise how alone he is.

He reaches for the bond almost savagely, like a child clinging frantically to the hand of his parent in the dead of night. Even in quiet moments in the Temple, he had always been surrounded by the soft buzz of ten thousand Force-sensitives. Now, the silence presses in on his eardrums, suffocating. It is as if he is the only living light in a graveyard of dead stars. Qui-Gon is far, far from here. Obi-Wan receives only the smallest moth-fluttering of acknowledgement, a firefly flashing weakly, miles away in a horribly still quagmire of black.

The expensive silk covers are smooth and yielding under his fingertips. He was not even aware that he had lowered himself onto the edge of his bed; perhaps his knees had given way.

The door smashes open with such a lack of civility that Obi-Wan recoils despite himself, heart hammering between his teeth.

A Togruta boy freezes on the doorstep, his short montrals flipped awry as he staggers under the weight of three bags, wide honey-brown eyes flicking over Obi-Wan. They stare at each other for a moment, Togruta and human, one with brash shamelessness, the other with well-veiled wariness.

"'Ello there, mate," comes a voice, decidedly too loud, pitchy, and self-assured. The boy grins widely, revealing a set of sharp pearly teeth that compliment the fierce white markings on his ochre cheeks perfectly. "Yer my new buddy, then, eh? Dragged all yer bags up for ya, just as the nice secretary lady asked."

Obi-Wan takes a moment to translate that garbled phrase into proper Core-world Basic, and nods slowly in reply.

With many a groan, curse, and huff, the Togruta boy tugs his burdens over the threshold, his lanky form seeming to mould into impossible angles. "M'name's Ezhno," he drawls as he kicks the door closed with a scuffed boot. Bang. "That's a name they picked fer me after my lovin' parents threw me out 'cause I'm deaf as a whaddaya-call-em inanimate object."

After this beautifully blunt declaration, Ezhno straightens up – revealing that he has at least one head's worth of height on Obi-Wan – and proceeds to throw another stare in Obi-Wan's direction. After a moment, he gives a snort. "Quiet, ent ya? I can lip-read, ya know. And yer lips sure ent movin'."

Worried that he has somehow offended his new roommate, Obi-Wan stands quickly, bobbing a short bow to an astonished Ezhno before tapping a finger to his lips and shaking his head.

At this, Ezhno's brazen features transform into an even wider grin of delight. "Can't speak? That's great!" Obi-Wan blinks, unsure how to respond, but Ezhno blazes ahead without care. "Don't need to worry 'bout you gettin' offended, see," he explains as he heaves the bags onto Obi-Wan's bed. "People seem to forget I can't read lips unless I'm facin' 'em dead on."

Oh. Obi-Wan inclines his head respectfully, and fishes in his pocket for flimsy and stylus. My name is Obi-Wan, he writes carefully.

Ezhno's eyebrows raise incredulously as he reads Obi-Wan's neat hand. "Fancy fellow, ent ya? Handwriting fit for a princess, and you bow to boot."

Obi-Wan's befuddled expression has the other boy sighing. "Git over 'ere," he commands importantly. "This," – he grabs Obi-Wan's hand and spits into it, ignoring Obi-Wan's gulp of disgust – "is how we become friends here." With a beaming smile, Ezhno spits into his own hand and seals their friendship in a firm, sticky handshake.

Somehow, Obi-Wan finds himself shedding his façade of politeness and grinning in exactly the same, crazed way.

"I've got a good feelin' about this, lil' Obi," Ezhno says, revealing those terrifyingly sharp teeth once again. "Wha' do they say again? Ah, yes. Honoured to meet ya. Welcome to the Zan Arber 'cademy for Gifted Children."

Obi-Wan gives their clasped hands one last pump. He cannot reply, but he has a feeling Ezhno does not need him to.

(:~:)

Two hours later, as he changes for dinner, Obi-Wan cannot decide whether he has found a kindred spirit or crazed roommate. Perhaps the two are not mutually exclusive.

Ezhno is…talkative, to say the least. He seems to make up for his inability to hear sound by producing as much as possible, in that lilting, pitchy half-shout that completely fills up the hole in the room left by Obi-Wan's silence, and more. Obi-Wan learns that Ezhno means 'He walks alone' ("Ironic, righ'? Wot sorta twisted social worker names a disowned child 'He blazin' walks alone'?") – that the cause of Ezhno's hearing impairment is his deformed montrals (Yeah, lookie at 'em stripes. They're gold, yeah, and 'parently they're s'posed to be blue or somethin' natural like that, but don'tcha think mine are bling-bling and well awesome?) – and that he had learnt to speak through hours of painstaking experiment and practice, and acquired a lovely accent (Them teachers are always tellin' me to stop lispin' and all that, and I go and tell 'em that I can't blimmin' 'ear meself anyway, so wot's the point?).

Obi-Wan had noticed that Ezhno's peculiar accent would become stronger when he gets particularly emotional, and the clear gold stripes of his montrals would deepen into a dusky honey.

With a sigh, he brushes fingers down the front of his high-collared, short grey jacket and crisply pressed trousers, noticing the fine stitching and quality make of the uniform. The boy that stares back at him in the full-length mirror of his closet door does not look like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi padawan. What he sees is a young, distinguished-looking student, dressed to almost military-precision in a slate-grey uniform with a line of metal buttons running diagonally from the hollow at the base of his throat to his right shoulder. The tight-fitting high collar scratches at his skin, and the sable boots have not the silence of Jedi-issue nerf-hide, but clack smartly against the floor with each step.

"Yer don't like it." Obi-Wan turns at the Ezhno's voice to find the Togruta pulling on scratched boots while tugging away at a few loose threads in his far more worn uniform. "I agree. It's stinkin' depressin'."

The corner of Obi-Wan's mouth twitches as he re-ties his nerf-tail, and he fights to keep his diaphragm from spasming in laughter.

Somewhere not too far away, a bell rings, while a special blue light in-built into the ceiling flashes three times.

"Dinner," Ezhno groans happily, kicking open the door. Obi-Wan spares a moment to wonder if the other boy ever uses the activation button like a normal person, but Ezhno has already caught his arm and pulled him into the corridor, which is fast filling with grey-clad students, some wearing dark eye-coverings and feeling along the textured walls for guidance.

"The hallways are all integrated with touch and sound signals," Ezhno explains as he trots along at a brisk clip. "Fer people who can't see and such, y'know."

Caught in the tide of students, Obi-Wan and Ezhno ride the flow before they find themselves deposited in a huge refectory, like seashells brought in by the tide. One side of the high-ceilinged hall swarms with navy-uniformed children of all ages, while the other half is a mass of grey.

Sensing Obi-Wan's confusion, Ezhno snorts. "Those are them normal students in navy blue," he says loudly, knowing that the cafeteria must be a cacophony of noise around them. "They make all of us abnormal ones wear grey," he mutters, pulling Obi-Wan into a line for food. "'Parently it's fer 'easier identification' or some bantha-poodoo like that. I'd like it very much if it was the other way 'round. I'd look right dashin' in blue. Wot're we supposed to look like in grey? Dead people?"

A question occurs to Obi-Wan, and he nudges Ezhno before making a motion with his finger.

"Oh, student mixin' and all that? Yeh, the staff make a big fuss outta that. 'Encouraging friendship' is one of this academy's stuck-up 'learning commitments'. As you can see," – Ezhno waves a hand at the blatantly segregated groups – "It's workin' a charm, innit?"

A lithe young Nautolan with darker azure headtails that perfectly match his smart navy-blue jacket walks sedately by, pursued by a gaggle of navy-skirted girls of various species, most of them aquatic. Mad giggling issues from the entire group.

Staring after Huei Tori, Obi-Wan was not even aware that his mouth had dropped open until Ezhno pokes him in the ribs.

"Yer all righ', mate?"

Obi-Wan nods numbly. If it were not for the slightest tic in the Nautolan padawan's face as he passed by, Obi-Wan would have thought him unaffected by the attentions of his female classmates. But apparently, even a sentinel-to-be has his limits.

It is then that he notices that quite a number of grey-clad girls around are giving him shy glances, too.

The colour drains from his features, but before he can do much save reach into his pocket for his flimsy, a white-uniformed attendant materialises at his elbow.

"Obi-Wan Asa?" the attendant asks, her smile widening as she reaches out toward his cheek. Obi-Wan fervently thanks his training as he slips around her hand, nodding quickly to forestall any more attempts to pat his hair or pinch his cheek. He taps his lips, much as he did when meeting Ezhno. The attendant looks at him for a moment, and seems to realise he can listen to her speech.

Speaking slowly and carefully, enunciating each word as if to an idiot, she says, "Medical wants to see you, dearie. For new students' checkup." As if that was not enough, she adds a brilliant, lipstick-slathered smile that does not reach her eyes.

Obi-Wan feels Ezhno's scowl in the Force. No doubt her manner of addressing Obi-Wan has hit a raw nerve.

"Say, 'ere," Ezhno growls. "He can 'ear just fine–"

A hand on his arm stops him. Obi-Wan shakes his head once, then faces the attendant and rubs his stomach with a hand.

"Oh, no, sweetie. It's better if we run the tests without any food in you. We'll give you dinner later, don't worry!"

Obi-Wan stares at the steaming platters of delicacies – the ZAAGC does not spare expense at the catering of its students – and draws a deep breath. A Jedi does not live for decadence. The longing purged from his rebellious stomach, he follows the attendant as she turns away.

"See ya!" Ezhno hollers after him. "Don't let 'em stick too many needles in yer, eh? You'd end up a specimen!"

For some reason, Obi-Wan does not see the joke this time. The Force tolls mutedly in agreement, like the last bell of the evening watch.

(:~:)

The doctor is the kind that smiles too often.

Obi-Wan ignores him and sinks into the Force, blazing through the lung capacity, flexibility, strength, sight, hearing, and balance tests with little trouble, and by the time he reaches the last examination, the doctor in charge of him is looking politely incredulous. In fact, Obi-Wan catches him murmuring under his breath to a nurse, "Nearly beat that crazy Nautolan boy from earlier today…would make a fine candidate…"

Now that is slightly more disturbing. Candidate for what? Obi-Wan wipes his face carefully empty, and watches as his doctor preps a sample tube.

"We just need a blood sample, kid, then you're good to go," he says, testing the pressure on the collector.

Obi-Wan stills, narrowing his eyes at the gleaming crystalline tube. Midichlorians. Would his midichlorian count affect the sample at all? He knows that no health centers include a midichlorian count, save he specialized Jedi-run establishments, but it remains that his cover could possibly be at risk.

The needle pauses. "You're not afraid of needles, are you?" The white-uniformed doctor inquires teasingly.

Face each challenge as it comes. Qui-Gon's earlier words echo in the Force's plenum.

There is nothing to be done.

Obi-Wan steels himself and nods assent. There is a small pinch as the needle enters his arm, with a hiss of compressed air, the crimson liquid fills the cylinder.

He watches as the doctor loads his blood sample into the reader.

The analyser whirrs for a moment, before a thin sheet of flimsy ejects from a slot at its base.

A moment of silence as Obi-Wan's doctor peruses the readings.

The Force coalesces into a singularity of whirring, breathless dread.

A crinkle of flimsy as the doctor flicks a hand at him. "It's all normal. You can go."'

Obi-Wan forces himself to replace his jacket without haste, and paces calmly from the room. Once in the corridor, he breaks into a brisk clip, heading in the direction of the dormitories. A light sheen of sweat beads his hairline.

The doctor who had examined Obi-Wan packs up his work for the day, shutting off analysers and computers, murmuring goodbyes to his colleagues who leave before him.

And when the examination room is empty save for himself, he removes a thin holo-pad from his bag, types a short message on it, and taps send. A notification pops up on the flickering emerald screen.

Jenna Zan Arbor has received your message.

The doctor returns the 'pad to his bag, flicks off the lights, and closes the laboratory door behind him as he leaves.

(:~:)

Ezhno, by Dakt37 on tumblr!

Chapter Text

The Jedi Sentinels have another name: The Shadows.

This name is as foreign as it is fitting. Should it be common knowledge – and it is not, out of necessity – most would pause and wonder at its paradoxical contradiction to all that the Jedi Order represents: Light, Stability, Truth. A Shadow lives with one purpose, and one only. To descend to the deepest reaches of Sith-stained hell to search out the Darkness there. They are called so because they cannot be solitary lanterns in a great sea of ink; they are shadows cast by the Light, the fettered edges, the last defence of the great crystalline ring of light that is the galaxy itself.

But there is a catch to such an ability, one often missed by the Council.

It is impossible to discern the boundary where shadow ends and true darkness begins.

So, to Tamesis Dooku, the Force is grey as he crouches beside the pooling sable edge of the wall. The night sky of Ventrux is not sewn with stars, or chillingly empty. Instead, unknown fumes from the numerous biological research facilities on the planet's surface form a haze that veils the land below from the starlight above. Perhaps that is why the Force is grey here; Light itself chokes on the last breaths of a thousand atrocities in the Living Force.

Non-sentient creatures scream too.

Dooku muses over a private thought that his former apprentice would have balked at his current proximity to one of the many testing laboratories of Zan Arbor Industries. Although, this is most likely a pointless endeavour, like all the other locations he has scouted in his past week on-planet.

All the same, the tall sentinel slips between the flickering white lights of the courtyard towards the squat, plain building, drawn like a wolf to firelight by the seething morass of wrongness in the Force. The guards are easily distracted by a wordless Force-compulsion, bowing to him as their numb hands open a small side-door. A long, winding staircase down and further down, a short, damp tunnel; and Dooku emerges into a well-lit corridor, in sharp contrast to the structure's dilapidated exterior, far above.

It is not the Force that tells Dooku he has 'hit jackpot' so to speak; it is a terrible certainty that lodges in the deepest part of his being. He hears Kit Fisto's breath hitch through the comm in his ear. The Nautolan knight is no doubt recording every inch of Dooku's surroundings with the other surveillance gear Dooku has strapped to his belt. And all from the safety of his quarters.

It is fortunate Kit can only see Dooku's surroundings through the holo feed, and not the Sentinel's face. Otherwise, he would have seen the vague expression of disgust that flitted across those hard-lined features. This is precisely why Dooku abhors group missions. A Sentinel is so much more efficient on his own.

The corridors are sparsely dotted with white door after white door, bleached by the harshness of the fluorescent lights above. There are no shadows in which to hide here, and although he makes quick work of the security cameras mounted on the ceiling – flicking them off with a nudge of the Force and inserting a chip to relay the entire feed back to Kit – the raw blankness of it all grates his nerves. Dooku knows he should feel unerringly like a specimen under the burning lamps of the examination table, but the Force is his weapon, and his cloak. He draws it around him in a sustained Force-suggestion, rendering him seemingly innocuous to any who should pass him in the corridors.

Dooku pauses to listen at a few doors, and narrows his eyes in annoyance at the complex matrix of biological and electronic security protocols on the entry panels beside them. The Force would overcome any electronic barriers easily enough…but he is in need of both a blood sample and fingerprint to enter any of the chambers off the hallways. Rising from his crouch by the panel, he notices the sheen behind the finger-shaped slot in the panel. A pulse-reader, no doubt, in-built into the blood collector.

A sigh of irritation escapes him. That would mean the finger in question would have to be connected to a living being…and so his original plan of locating a worker here and amputating an appendage or two is not an option.

Live capture is always so tedious.

Dooku's annoyance multiplies as he delves deeper into the laboratory, avoiding the few white-coated night-shift workers by ducking into adjacent corridors, cupboards, storerooms. The walls and doors themselves are strangely impermeable to the Force, the life-signatures behind them muted. Dooku presses a hand against the smooth surface and sends out one searching tendril after the other into the duracrete, to find he can read only the faintest sense of life on the other side.

Grudgingly, he admits Qui-Gon would have been of use here. His former apprentice is so in tune with the Living Force that he would no doubt have been able to make more out of the muffled signatures within the walls.

He quickens his step.

The passageways are long, meandering, endless. It is as though each passage has no end, and branches infinitely along its length. Dooku's internal compass nudges at his awareness. He cannot help feeling as though he has missed something; a rather embarrassing thought, as he prides himself on his usually acute understanding of his surroundings.

And then he finally comes upon the end of a hallway, where a long flight of stairs leads up to a narrow door, locked by a simple key code. Dooku does not even pause as his raised hand leaches the Force into the circuitry, lights flashing green on the panel as the door hisses open.

His own sudden intake of breath mirrors Kit Fisto's in his ear as his steps into the darkened chamber beyond.

The merciless light of the laboratory streams over him from behind and illuminates the neat rows of desks before him. Dooku's shadow stretches far ahead, as if reaching for the holoprojector set at the front of the room. The cheerful wall-displays of educational material appear suddenly sinister in the half-light, children's drawings all crooked and twisted.

Dooku stares at the classroom, and glances once more over his shoulder at the terrible whiteness of the laboratory.

One more step, and the door slides closed, plunging him into darkness. Dooku turns, runs a hand over the wall. Seamless, unmarked. A one-way door, then.

His internal compass was right, after all.

"Sithspit," Kit's accented voice breathes, from Dooku's earpiece. "The entire underground laboratory complex is connected to the school."

Dooku does not reply. The Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children is soundless around him as he slips through the shadows – his allies – into the main hallway, and out into the choking silence of the Ventruxian night.

(:~:)

"And for homework, Five hundred words on the differences between bacta and kolto!" The teacher's voice is altogether too shrill and too excited. "Easy, yes, m'dears? Class dismissed!"

Cupping his chin casually in both hands, Obi-wan stares unamusedly at his chemistry teacher's beaming face. His thoughts are dull with boredom. And in three…two…one…

"Remember your things, dearies!" The teacher gushes. "I do worry about all of you." The room resounds with the scrape of chairs against scratched floors as two dozen or so grey-clad students rise from their seats.

"Righ' on time," Ezhno mutters under his breath as he collects his bag from the desk beside Obi-Wan's. "Yer know, we should beworred 'bout 'er. It's like she thinks we'll all ferget vocabulators 'n things simply 'cause we're special an' all."

Obi-Wan cannot help but agree. The last few days had been trying, simply because of the glaring differences in the manner with which most teachers treat their students. This teacher in particular gives fake smiles to any student in grey, reserving genuine ones for those in navy. Obi-Wan had walked past one of her 'normal' classes one morning, and she had most certainly not reminded the navy-clad students to collect their belongings, as she does without fail to those is grey at the end of every 'special' class.

Obi-Wan brushes the thought aside. It should not bother him that his teacher repeats the same line to them, over and over, like a sappy line from a broken holovid.

What does bother him is that all the other students seem to accept it, as though the juttering, repetitious holovids of their lives are normal.

Obi-Wan lifts his satchel morosely, bringing the strap up over his head and onto the opposite shoulder as the first lingering stabs of a headache begins at his temples.

"Wot's eatin' you, Lil' Obi?" Ezhno's broad accent is never dark, but Obi-wan detects a thread of concern in the teasing question.

He shakes his head quickly and taps his holo-pad, bringing up his timetable. The only spark of good cheer he had felt in the past few days was when he discovered that he and Ezhno shared most classes. The lanky Togruta had apparently started school late.

His holo-pad, like all the other students', is programmed with the same disgustingly cheery interface as the whole sithly building. "Next class: Inter-system Relations!" it pronounces chirpily, in accompaniment to the bright, flashing interactive timetable with a colour-selection that would not have looked out of place in a glitzy retro bar in the lower levels of Coruscant.

Force, he misses Qui-Gon.

His master had yet to appear in any of their Inter-System Relations classes. When Obi-Wan had asked about their current teacher, Ezhno had informed him that different substitutes had been taking the classes until a suitable teacher was found.

"Yer sure yer 'kay?" Ezhno still seems unconvinced.

Obi-Wan does not reply for a moment, and fingers the smooth black box at his belt, barely repressing a shudder. On his first morning of classes, the teacher had barely given him a glance when he mimed his inability to speak. There had been a few words through the communicator on the desk at the front of the room, and a harried-looking teaching assistant had appeared minutes later with a box and thrust it in Obi-Wan's direction.

At Obi-Wan's questioning expression, the teacher had paused in his lecturing and said shortly, without fully turning to him, "Vocabulator. Make use of it."

Obi-Wan had looked at the box and its small keyboard and speaker for a few more moments, and then calmly clipped it to his belt, where it had remained, unused. One grating, mechanised sentence from another student's vocabulator had decided that.

There is no way in the Force that he is going to have that inhuman voice associated with him.

It is rather a pity most teachers do not take kindly to his refusal to answer questions with a vocabulator. He has found himself in not one, but two detentions already, both given when teachers grew too annoyed with having to lean forward to squint at his answers written elegantly on flimsy. The only high point was that the second detention included Ezhno. His friend had gotten extremely riled – a fearsome sight, as he bared his sharper canines in a snarl – and told the teacher in question that vocabulators, hearing aids, sight implants, and the like were all very good but should not be forced upon those who did not wish to use them.

The teacher had not been pleased, and set them both essays in detention.

What she could not have known, of course, was that Obi-Wan had thanked his new friend in his own way by writing both his and Ezhno's extra essays in record time, printing and depositing both hard-copies on the teacher's desk at the end of detention.

Oh, he had relished the look of utter bamboozlement on her face when she looked up from her marking to two stacks of typed flimsy and his knowing smirk.

Not very Jedi of him, perhaps. But it had been fun.

Of course, Ezhno has since worshiped him as a genius.

The thought makes him smile a little. Nothing's wrong, Obi-Wan scratches onto his flimsy. Just thinking of your expression when I trounce you next week in Galactic History. This must be convincing enough, as Ezhno barks a laugh and gives him a good-natured shove.

The silence between them is companionable as they head towards their next class. Obi-Wan focuses on the mission – eyes picking out any irregularity in their surroundings – but he cannot help questioning his usefulness. Despite his attempts to investigate the school in general, he had quickly learned that his grey uniform is a beacon to all staff. It seems he is unable to wander alone a few metres down a deserted corridor before being waylaid by a concerned party.

"Are you lost, dear?"

"Do you need help, young man?"

"Oh! Be careful, there's a step there – oh, you can see? I'm sorry, I'll speak slower so you can lip-read better…"

Obi-Wan grimaces. Just remembering that particular one irritates him to no end. The headache that had started up at his temples begins to burn behind his eyes, blurring his vision. And in this moment, Obi-Wan knows he is brooding, despite the promise he had made himself to be strong, what seems like eons ago in front of Eir's tree.

"Distracted, student-of-mine?" a warm voice asks softly, humorously, somewhere above his bowed head.

The Force sparkles with recognition, holding Obi-Wan in place for one breathless instant as he stares at the tips of his boots, unable to lift his face for fear that he has heard wrongly. He feels rather than sees Ezhno stop beside him. A long, slow breath.

Obi-Wan's eyes snap up to meet the merry blue gaze of Qui-Gon Jinn.

The tall Jedi Master leans casually, arms crossed, against the doorframe of his classroom, his long head of hair bound back from his aquiline features. His clothes are not shabby, but not overly expensive or new, either. The simple dark waistcoat, white shirt and grey trousers simply convey a sense of severity, that he is a schoolmaster not to be trifled with. Although his shields are drawn tight about his consciousness, a smirk plays with the corner of his mouth.

Sensing his friend's hesitation, Ezhno steps cautiously around Obi-Wan. "Yer the new teacher, then?" he asks dubiously, liquid brown eyes flicking back to his friend, who continues to stare at this new apparition with strangely moist eyes.

"That would be I, yes," Qui-Gon says, straightening and extending a hand. "And you are, Mr…?"

"M'name's Ezhno," Ezhno answers, enthusiastically pumping Qui-Gon's hand. "An' I'm not Mister anythin'. Got no last name," he declares stoutly.

"I see." An understanding spark appears his master's gaze, and Obi-Wan knows that Ezhno's family history is not lost on Qui-Gon. "Your accent is quite marvellous, Ezhno," Qui-Gon muses. "I can discern nearly a half-dozen root languages from which it originates."

"Do you want me to stop?" Ezhno's voice is suddenly quiet. The gold stripes of his montrals darken conspicuously.

"What would make you presume that?" Qui-Gon says, raising an eyebrow. "I would rather you carry on as you were. This is my second day, and you are the first student with an actual personality."

Obi-Wan is gifted with the nigh-on impossible spectacle of Ezhno struck dumb. "…Thank you, sir," he murmurs hoarsely, when he finds his voice again. His honey-brown eyes positively glow with the beginnings of hero-worship.

"You are very much welcome, Ezhno," Qui-Gon returns, motioning him into the classroom. "And please, no sir. The name is Jinnson."

Ezhno seems to be half in a daze as he wanders over to his seat.

Qui-Gon turns back to his apprentice to find Obi-Wan looking up at him with suspiciously bright eyes. "And you are?" he murmurs, softening his voice as much as he dares to. Showing favouritism would be highly unnatural, given that they should be utter strangers.

Obi-Wan's handwriting is slightly shaky as he scribbles down his answer. My name, he writes, is Obi-Wan Asa. Honoured to meet you, Mister Jinnson.

They shake hands solemnly. "The honour, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon says conspiratorially, "is all mine."

And Obi-Wan knows he should not be grinning quite as hugely as he is, but since his master's smile is wide enough to split the sky, he doesn't think it really matters.

(:~:)

"…and then the slugs pulled out a plethora of artillery and blasted the guts out of the reptiles." Qui-Gon's baritone voice rings out hypnotically over the heads of the students, smothering the wave of giggles in response to his statement. Even those unable to hear follow the tale, enraptured. With each sentence, Qui-Gon's words are displayed as text by the holoprojector resting just next to his boots, which are blatantly planted on the teacher's desk, crossed at the ankles.

In the second row, Obi-Wan gapes incredulously at his master, and wonders if the world has gone mad.

Qui-Gon blithely ignores his apprentice's wide-eyed bewilderment and plows straight on with his story, lounging back in his chair. It is the delightful kind the swivels, with the joint oiled so that no amount of movement will cause it to squeak. He knows he must be quite the sight, all slicked-back long hair, waistcoat, fingers locked behind his head and legs stretched out before him, with his boots on the table.

"And so the reptiles regrouped on some backwater planet of bounty hunters and discussed battle tactics," he says casually, grinning as twenty-four young students lean forward in unison, their eyes gleaming with enchantment. The twenty-fifth reaches up behind his ear to tug self-consciously at a braid that is not there, sitting ramrod-straight and looking politely worried.

A smile flits across Qui-Gon's face as their bond flares in the Force. It does not disturb him in the slightest that his padawan is currently questioning his sanity. "Now," he drawls, "the reptiles were at least intelligent enough that they realised the slugs had advantage of wealth. They resorted to guerrilla warfare."

A rather small Dressalian girl in the front row makes a face, but does not raise her hand. Her nervousness sparks red in the Force.

"Guerrilla warfare," Qui-Gon says calmly, "is battle based mostly on ambushes and other such tactics." He favours the young girl with a warm smile. "Don't be afraid to ask questions," he says quietly, for her ears alone.

The student's milky eyes blink slowly in his general direction, and he knows she cannot see his smile, but senses it all the same. The corners of her own lips curve, if ever so slightly.

"Wot 'appened next?"

Surprised, Obi-Wan's head snaps to his left, where Ezhno is leaning so far forward that he nearly overbalances his desk. "Wot 'appened?" the Togruta boy exclaims, eyes dancing with curiosity.

Qui-Gon swivels to face Ezhno, and straightens, sliding his boots off the desk. "What do you think happened?" he asks, grinning in challenge.

Ezhno's face twists into an extraordinarily intricate expression, one that nearly makes Obi-Wan wince. Qui-Gon's grin widens.

"I think," Ezhno says carefully, his accent diminishing slightly as he struggles to enunciate every word. "That there weren't – wasn't – an endin'. The slugs an' the reptiles just blasted each other wiv wotever weapons they could find, and over time lotsa slugs and reptiles were blasted to bits, prob'ly, but their borders stay just 'bout the same."

"Excellent." Qui-Gon's praise is softly spoken, but the word is vibrantly emblazoned across the wall by the ever-truthful lights of the holoprojector. "You have perfectly described the diplomatic relationship between Hutt Space and the Trandoshan border."

The class erupts in uproar, laughter exploding in the small room.

Obi-Wan stares, reeling. He does not doubt that if he ever replied to Qui-Gon in a similar manner, he would have been – no. He would never have formulated such a reply in the first place. But…a glance to his left reveals a beaming Ezhno, basking in what is probably the first genuine praise he has ever received from an instructor.

Admittedly, Qui-Gon is a blasted good teacher.

Obi-Wan faces the front of the classroom again, to find Qui-Gon regarding him coolly, eyebrow raised. With a soundless sigh, Obi-Wan gives his head a tiny, sarcastic shake, acquiescing to the older man's oddities. His master's answering chuckle through the bond is well worth the small mental swat Obi-Wan receives along with it.

The remainder of the period is slightly more normal – in a relative sense. Qui-Gon's frequent forays into the realm of metaphor still have most of the class clutching the sides of their grey uniforms in fits of mirth. Qui-Gon makes a point to speak a few words to each student in the room privately, receiving many answers in return: shy, enthusiastic, embarrassed, and intrigued, but all utterly delighted at the simplicity of being acknowledged.

Despite his initial hesitation, Obi-Wan himself grinning along with the others, caught up in the giddiness of the Force around them. Still, he cannot relax completely. In the midst of researching a particularly interesting topic, Obi-Wan notices that Qui-Gon's smiling eyes flit from student to student in an unending, unreadable sequence, analysing, observing, and searching for any anomalies in a sea of laughing faces. Obi-Wan's smile freezes on his cheeks, and he forces himself to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat.

How foolish. Has his master not told him endlessly to focus on the present moment? The present moment is one of levity, laughter, and love of knowledge, but the mission has not yet come to a conclusion. Pressing his lips tightly together, Obi-Wan fights against the growing guilt within. How could he have possibly allowed himself to relax to such an extent as to forget the mission objective?

Somewhere in the haze of the Force, he senses Qui-Gon pause in the middle of a sentence and turn slightly towards him. The faintest notion of worry wafts into the air.

The shrill ringing of the bell jars Obi-Wan in his seat, and the accompanying flash of blue light blinds him for an instant. He comes to full awareness sharply, painfully, sucking in a breath so short and brittle that the air scratches at his lungs.

Twenty-five chairs scrape against the floor. Obi-Wan snatches up his satchel and turns to go, only to find that the other students seem to have decided to skip lunch in favour of pelting Qui-Gon with questions about his lesson material. To Obi-Wan's left, Ezhno claps a quick hand on his shoulder and surges forward to the front of the room with everyone else, knocking over his own chair in the process. It crashes to the floor in a metallic clang.

Obi-Wan finds himself suddenly alone in the middle of the classroom, surrounded by empty desks and chairs pushed hastily back in place. Crouching, he quietly rights Ezhno's chair.

Qui-Gon's gaze brushes his, over the chaos of shouted questions, giggling children, and waving arms. Obi-Wan gives a nod that could be the tiniest of bows, forces a smile to show he understands, and pivots to go.

His master is fulfilling his part of the mission. His own emotions aside, Obi-Wan has to do the same.

There is no emotion. There is peace, he reminds himself.

For some reason, the words ring more hollow than they have ever before.

(:~:)

In a deserted hallway, Obi-Wan finds a cabinet, ducks into the shadow within, and pulls out a comlink from a hidden pouch in his belt. The compact, thin device is text-and-image only, for secrecy's sake. A few half-hearted jabs at a button later, a few short lines of coded text appear, illuminating the cramped space with an unnatural green glow. Decoding the message takes rather longer than usual. His headache starts up again, pounding in his ears. The Unifying Force is unsettled once more, forming a solid lump of premonition behind his sternum. He has a very, very bad feeling about this.

Time sent:  0300 hours, today

In our investigation of several suspicious complexes, we have discovered a vast underground laboratory, of which an exit to the academy is hidden in the wall of a classroom. Knight Fisto has compiled a map, which I have included below.

Examining the map, Obi-Wan's heart leaps into his throat; the Force seems to skip to his irregular pulse.

The classroom into which the laboratory tunnel opens is where he had been standing, mere minutes previous: Qui-Gon's new classroom.

In light of this revelation, I must caution you all to be on your guard. The door seems to be one-way; it is difficult to locate from the classroom and has no entry panel on that side. Huei, gain your teachers' trust and respect. A teacher always reveals more to a star pupil than an average pupil. Qui-Gon, befriend your students as much as possible. Children are perceptive; one may have seen something of worth.

So that was why his master was so uncharacteristically…odd in class. Somehow, knowing that Qui-Gon has managed to raise his classmates' self-esteem while seamlessly adhering to the mission objectives only increases Obi-Wan's opinion that he is mostly useless here. The next few words only serve to confirm this awful conviction.

Padawan Kenobi, continue in your efforts, whatever they may be. Back up Master Jinn or Huei if necessary. Knight Fisto and I will continue to monitor the laboratories. Qui-Gon, contact me on the secure channel at the earliest possible convenience.

May the Force be with all of you.

Dooku

Obi-Wan kills the power on the comlink with a violent stab and shoves it back into his belt. In the empty dark, his fingers press into his throbbing temples and he closes his eyes for a moment. Flashes of burnt-out green dance across the insides of his eyelids, a fading memory of Dooku's message.

Where is the Force?

Finding the Force has never been so difficult. The Unifying Force seems to bind him in place, preventing him from reaching out, from lowering his shields. Obi-Wan struggles with it, feeling as though he grasps at moonbeams that slip through his fingers, leaving him hollow, shadowed, empty.

The cabinet door slides open, allowing harsh white light to cascade into the space.

"Oi! What are you doing in here–"

But Obi-Wan is already halfway down the corridor, the janitor's face nothing more than a blur behind him.

It is fortunate that it is lunch hour; otherwise, he might have encountered far more people than he actually does. As it is, he guesses that he speeds past them too quickly for any recognition to set in.

He slides to a halt in front of the small flower garden in front of the student dormitory wing, and remains frozen there for a moment, staring at the four small, neat flower patches set out in the quarters of a square, separated by two paths that bisect each other in a strange little crossroads.

With slow steps, Obi-Wan paces to the centre of the paths and lowers himself onto the packed earth. The Living Force is stronger here, but it is still a mere fluttering in comparison to the gardens of Naboo, or the Jedi Temple. The velvet Flandoran blossoms are soft under his fingertips, but yielding, as if the sharp neatness of the flower beds are a flouncy façade to cover up the wilting plants themselves. The colours are too artificial, and although a weak pillar of light bleeds in through the domed skylight above, there is no fresh air here.

The flowers are like Obi-Wan. Slowly suffocating in contrived light, starved of the healing cordial that is the Living and Unifying Force when it is unfettered, clean. A mirthless smile flickers over his face. The blossoms quiver in a wind that is not there, row upon row of gaudily uniformed soldiers shivering in dry soil.

His flute is cool and smooth as it rolls between his fingers. He is not even aware he had slipped it out of his sleeve in the first place.

There, gazing at the rows of fettered blossoms, wishing for some release, Obi-Wan brings the flute to his lips and begins to play.

Avarin had been giving him lessons at the Temple. Obi-Wan chooses the simplest of tunes, a lilting child's song, playing softly, so as not to attract undue attention. His eyes flutter closed.

Unlike that time on Naboo when the Force had moved his fingers and conducted his song, Obi-Wan focuses on his own melody, listening to each note fall into the Force, channelling the cool rush of the Living Force into the music. The blossoms sway in that strange breeze again, the breath of wind that should not be there; he senses their graceful movement through his closed eyelids. He is no longer simply a conduit for the Force; the Force dances to his will, weaving into the warp and weft of time. The Force had sung to him on Naboo. Now, he sings in answer.

The air is not quite silent when lowers the flute and opens his eyes.

With a silent sigh, he begins to rise–

–and freezes in place, shock filling his nerves with ice.

Where the flowerbeds had contained row after row of neatly planted blossoms, vines weave along the paths, connecting the four flower patches in an intricate pattern of emerald, studded with new buds of snow and sapphire, sable and scarlet. Crouching at their convergence, Obi-Wan can almost see life running through those harlequin ley-lines, spiralling out from where he kneels at the centre.

The thought occurs to him, innocent in its magnitude.

You did that.

He stares down at the flute in his hand. A simple grey cylinder, etched with a pattern of leaves. True, he had directed the Force this time. If the music of the spheres were an orchestra, he had played the part of conductor.

But by the Force…! What has he just accomplished?

The bell rings for afternoon lessons, shattering this beautiful dream. Obi-Wan blinks and looks once more at the garden.

The new vines are still there.

He spins on one heel and bolts for his next class, heart hammering between his teeth.

He needs answers.

Qui-Gon. He needs Qui-Gon.

(:~:)

Waiting in line by the massive food counters for dinner, Obi-Wan cranes his neck, searching for the tall, broad-shouldered figure of his master among the teachers and students packed into the eating hall, all to no avail. In the space in the line before him, Ezhno begins to animatedly tell the kitchen staff what he wants. The list is extensive.

Someone collides with him roughly, sending him reeling back a place. The navy-clad boy behind him spits out an insult as Obi-Wan nearly crashes into him.

"Watch where you step, mute boy!"

Ignoring the words shouted into his ear, Obi-Wan glances around in vain for the person who had rammed into him. Releasing a small amount of pain into the Force – at least that task is somewhat easier now, as the tight knot of forewarning in his chest has loosened slightly – Obi-Wan straightens his creased uniform.

His fingers brush something in his pocket that was not there before.

Acting as if he is checking his pocket-chrono, Obi-Wan examines at the crumpled scrap of flimsy.

Huei's writing is slewed, as though the words were written in a great rush.

I have to investigate something. Cause a distraction.

Obi-Wan barely suppresses a snort as he allows the flimsy to casually drop from his fingers. Does he expect me to come up with something on the spot? He evaluates a half-dozen options as he kicks the scrap under the nearest food counter. Not good. None of them are anywhere near large-scale enough to divert attention for an extended period of time.

"I asked you already, kid! What will you be having?"

Faced with an increasingly annoyed lunch lady, Obi-Wan quickly reviews the different dishes bubbling in their heated containers.

He grins.

When he points at the tureen, the woman scoops a large ladle of green liquid into a bowl and sets it on his tray. "Will that hoi-broth be all, young man?" she asks doubtfully.

He nods his thanks, smiles sweetly and carries his tray over to an empty table. Ezhno is still standing at the counter, piling the edges of his laden tray with yet more food.

As he picks up the hoi-broth with both hands, tea-bowl style, Obi-Wan looks up across the crowded refectory and sees Qui-Gon Jinn enter.

Qui-Gon's gaze snaps in his direction – whether by the intuition or a tremor in the Force, Obi-Wan does not know – and Obi-Wan raises the bowl, as though making a toast to his master. He inclines his head in the tiniest of bows.

And he brings it to his lips.

Chapter Text

As he steals along the hallway towards the principal's office, Huei Tori is all too aware that he is a shadow eclipsed by the deeper penumbra of his master.

Somewhere behind him, horrified screams issue from the refectory. Kenobi must have accomplished his task, and quite admirably. But the thought is but a fleeting flash of a guttering candle in the empty hollow of his mind, smoothed into the pool of grey tranquility that is the Force for a Jedi Sentinel.

He was born to be a Shadow.

Focus, Padawan, his master has always instructed. Focus. There is the mission. Nothing else. Do not fear the unknown depths. Sentinels are meant to fall – and there will be no one to catch you if you drown. But you will join the shadows, because you must.

Huei takes a breath.

The water closes over his head, and Huei Tori ceases to exist.

Grey is his name. Grey is the world, bleached from colour into the solitary focus of the mission. And grey is the Force.

No. Not the Force. The Force still glows within the depths of his soul, formless, dim. Luminous beings are we; not this gross matter. Sometimes, Huei feels as though he is drowning, and he is simply a captured bird that yearns to reach for that tiny glimmer of light through the bars of its cage.

In all their shared meditations, Master Dooku's light had always been harsh, unyielding, contrived. It is the frozen light of diamond-cut purpose, like the hollowed tubes of fluorescent white that illuminate the deepest mines of Phindar.

The guttering candle in Huei's heart flickers once more, choking on its own smoke. It is the smallest flutter of warmth in a cold wasteland. And as he steps onto the soft carpet of the principal's office, Huei knows that all he needs to do is to blow out that tiny flame. Extinguish the candle, and his mind would be barren of all but the mission, lit only with the artificial fuel of his own determination.

But he can't quite bring himself to do so.

Perhaps it is because of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The other boy is a bonfire in the Force, ablaze, radiant. Huei can see clarion-clear that all who pass within Kenobi's circled firelight are touched by it, drawn to the glorious purity of his luminance. Huei has felt it too. He is…no, not jealous. He simply yearns to burn in the Force forever, as Kenobi does, an undying star.

Would this dishonour his teaching?

Huei draws in a quick breath, unbalanced by this single choice that cleaves the Unifying Force into an abyss before him.

He centres himself on his purpose in the present. The principal's office is empty as a tomb, all neat lines and navy patterns. Three tall holo-book cases cut off his line of sight to a corner. Huei's careful observation over the last few days has paid off; the principal takes her midday meal in the refectory every other day. As of now, she is no doubt trying to right whatever chaos Kenobi wrought there.

The Force chimes to him softly from the lowermost drawer on the dark metal desk. Crouching, Huei gives the drawer an experimental tug, to find it immovable as stone. A flashing pattern of cybernetic squares flares over the smooth, mirrored metal. Locked. But closer inspection reveals there to be thin gap where the top of the drawer does not quite meet the base of the one above it. Wide enough for a credit-chit or card, no more. Huei's slate-grey eyes narrow in a grim frown.

The Force shrieks a warning.

In one smooth movement, Huei pivots, throws himself soundlessly forward and rolls behind the bookcases to his left.

The principal storms in, muttering under her breath as her soberly-coloured but expensive dress swings around her knees.

"Dratted children and their unpredictable allergies…"

In the tiny space between one corner of a bookcase and the next, Huei tilts his head, dark blue headtails swinging. Kenobi. It must be. When Obi-Wan had collapsed at that dinner with Huei and his master, Huei had not known what to make of the sudden cooperation between Master Dooku and Master Jinn. It still is somewhat confusing to him that the unorthodox Jedi could have once been Tamesis Dooku's padawan.

Huei peers through the thin strip of light between the shelf above and the row of books. Still flustered, the principal removes a small chip from one pocket and presses it to the surface of the locked drawer. Pulling it open on oiled railings, she rummages within, withdrawing something too small to see. The principal shoves the object in one pocket and the key chip in the other, before turning smartly for the door.

The moment stretches into infinitude in Huei's mind. He could attempt to take the unknown object, only to find it irrelevant, or he could go for chip, but find nothing of consequence in the drawer.

There is no time at all to think. Reaching into the Force, Huei sends the lightest of breezes across the back of the prinicpal's neck. As she reaches up to scratch at the irritated spot, Huei quickly slips the hidden object out of her pocket, buoying it in the Force an inch off the ground as the door hisses closed behind the principal's retreating back.

Pickpocketing is an art in distraction. Pinch someone on one spot and they will not notice a differing pressure in another.

Master Dooku's words are heavy in his mind as Huei pads silently from his concealed corner. A wave, and the unknown article sails into his hand. Quick examination reveals it to be a key-card, the kind designed to be placed on the surface of a reader.

Moving quickly, Huei slides his communicator out of his pocket, which bleeps softly as he slots in the card. He sets the device to reading and copying the code on the key. Found this in the principal's office, he enters in the accompanying message. The code may be of use; it seems to be a key card of some sort. Code uploaded, Huei taps a short command sequence to send the intel to headquarters, where he knows his master and Knight Fisto will make use of it.

The sharp ringing of the bell in the corridor startles him slightly. Midday meal is over. The card is slid back into the drawer through the thin gap, and with a quick glance around the empty office to check if everything is undisturbed, Huei palms open the door.

Someone is waiting for him behind it.

(:~:)

In a bustling thoroughfare halfway towards the horizon, Jedi Master Tamesis Dooku pauses in his step, clutching his communicator in his suddenly numb hand.

Huei.

(:~:)

A quick foray into the mind of Obi-Wan Kenobi, as he collapses choking onto the plastiform refectory floor:

Crimson blood rushing in ears, heartbeat hammering against fragile skin of throat that might be about to burst out gushing onto the clean floor, terrified screams that match his own, Oh stars above what's happening to him we need help over here someone get the principal – IneedairIneedairIneedair – Me best friend's dyin' 'ere get 'elp already, hands on neck, tongue heavy in mouth, the Force calling him to shed off the heaviness of his flesh and join the symphony of the stars, cold silence in still, still heart… sharp hand slamming into cheekbone, a really annoying voice in his mind shouting Stay awake young one or I will kill you again myself, and the Force…

Oh.

The Force.

It is everything.

Obi-Wan smiles and lets it take him.

(:~:)

A pause. One of those strange little moments where one simply floats, suspended, having fallen through the intangible gap between time and reality.

Walk.

So Obi-Wan walks the endless wastes of his dreams.

He treads the warp and weft of the Unifying Force, his own timeline a meandering silver thread that weaves its solitary way through a hundred, a thousand, a million other lives. These other strings shiver when he brushes them with awed fingers, notes cascading from their iridescent lengths to join the infinite choir of the galaxy. No. Not the galaxy alone; Obi-Wan raises his head, the great loom of the Force groans, and the galaxy is suddenly a simple spiral pattern in the tapestry of time and the cosmos.

A bubbling little laugh leaps out of him, like the first cry of a new-born child who knows the universe is beautiful, greater than he could ever possibly understand, but it does not matterbecause the Force is everywhere and inside him all at once and he is so incredibly insignificant and important at the same time.

Only after a moment does Obi-Wan realise he had laughed.

Here in the kaleidoscope of stars, he wets his lips with a strangely dry tongue, and gasps, "Why?"

The word echoes into the song of the Force like a note made of crystal. It is more than a question; and the question has more than one answer.

The Force is silent. The song is, too.

And Obi-Wan begins to understand.

"I don't need to know. Not yet." The last word is a half-chuckle of emotion; too many others rise in his throat. "I'll know when I have to."

The music of the spheres begins to play once more, as constant as before.

Obi-Wan glances once more at that beautiful, glorious tapestry, the exquisite warp and weft of the Force, and closes his eyes. He savours the cool sweetness of his voice just one last time, as he lets it sweep over his tongue and out through his lips.

"All right, then."

The perfect song of the Force dissolves into burning lights, voices, and an aching pain in his throat. His heart thuds excruciatingly slowly in the lethargy of his chest.

With a titanic effort, Obi-Wan opens his eyes.

"Feeling better?" the white-robed Iktotchi nurse murmurs down at him, her voice disgustingly sweet. Her elegant cranial horns frame her smiling features. "You were out for six hours straight, with one of the most violent first-time allergic reactions we've ever seen. Quite worried the teacher on lunch duty what-was-his-name Jinnson."

Obi-Wan closes swollen eyelids for a moment, then braves the glaringly bright phosphorescent lamps in the ceiling to blink confusedly at the room.

Tiled floors, scrubbed meticulously clean. White walls, white medi-bunk, white sheets, white light. White-uniformed nurse. Whitened steel door, and…

…is that a biologically coded security lock?

He attempts to push his consciousness through the walls, but is met with a strange resistance. It is as if the walls themselves absorb the Force and nullify it, leaving him stranded on this island of awareness.

His nurse seems to sense his uneasiness. "You're in the private section of the hospital wing, dear," she says, fiddling with some monitor or the other outside his field of vision. "Your grandfather's position merits such treatment for you."

The door clicks open. It is of an old-fashioned design, the kind that swings on hinges instead of sliding on hydraulic pistons. In steps a tall, blonde-haired human woman who somehow wears her lab coat like the royal robes of a queen. The deepening lines at the corners of her eyes and the not-quite-youthful tint of her features do nothing to decrease the sense of presence that surrounds her. Most defining are her clear grey eyes; they speak of a higher intelligence, of unreadable knowledge.

Obi-Wan is startled when the Iktotchi nurse bows to this new arrival in a manner that suggests more servitude than respect. He is instantly on guard, though, when he hears her breathless exclamation:

"Doctor Zan Arbor!"

Jenna Zan Arbor smiles teasingly at Obi-Wan as she dismisses the nurse. The door clicks shut with a thud that belies its thickness.

Obi-Wan is suddenly very glad he cannot speak. Something is crying out unnervingly in the blurred expanse of the Force. He settles for staring unreservedly instead, hoping he looks every inch the curious child.

"Obi-Wan!" Zan Arbor declares, in far too familiar a tone for comfort. Obi-Wan represses a shudder as she settles on the edge of his cot. "You were very fortunate that I decided to visit the academy today," she says lightly. "Who know what could have happened if I were not present! Still," – she pats his hand, and it takes all of Obi-Wan's self-control not to squirm – "you kept me from lunch! I entered with the principal and found the refectory in quite an uproar."

Obi-Wan dips his head in apology.

"You'll have to remain here over the weekend for observation, I'm afraid," Zan Arbor says, rising. "We've already contacted your grandfather. He's quite disappointed at the prospect of not having you home over the weekend."

That, I highly doubt, Obi-Wan muses darkly. A measure of relief bleeds into his system – at least he will not have to spend the next few days in the sole company of Master Dooku.

Zan Arbor turns back to him from where she was examining the readings on the monitors. "I'll be staying to keep an eye on you, young man."

Relief coalesces into uneasiness, clogging his throat. Obi-Wan begins to mime his protest, but Zan Arbor silences him with a look that is equal parts sweetness and authority.

"I pride myself on remaining with each of my patients throughout their time of healing," she proclaims. "I was the first to treat you in the refectory, and you'll see the last of me when I declare you fit to return to your studies."

The Force weaves dark spots around her.

"Now," she says brightly, "rest." Obi-Wan hears the soft beep-beep of the monitor as she instructs it to inject some sedative or the other into the tube leading to the crook of his arm.

The door closes behind her with a strangely final boom.

Obi-Wan tries to center himself. As per usual when he is in a place of medical expertise, he is rather unsuccessful.

Belatedly, Obi-Wan realises he is dressed in the soft folds of a medical gown. Panic rears its snarling head for a moment as he wonders over the whereabouts of his comm, which had been in the pocket of his uniform. But another moment's introspection reminds him that his comlink is keyed to his Force-signature; they would most likely have though it was a broken 'pad of some sort.

He reaches for the Force again – only to find it bizarrely out of his reach, like the glowing fireflies he had once reached for in the Temple's outer gardens. Dully, he grasps at the fleeing tendrils once more, but the effort proves too much for him even as his eyelids droop and the falls into the darker oblivion of sleep outside of the Force.

There is only the slightest notion inside his numb mind that something is terribly, terribly wrong…

(:~:)

Outside Obi-Wan's room, Zan Arbor paces down the white corridors lit with harsh fluorescent lights, passing one plain door after the other until she reaches another one that appears just as uninteresting. But she swipes her card before it, inserts her finger into the reader, and pushes open the door. There are two assistiants in lab coats within, one checking biological readouts while the other monitors the environment of the water tank set at the centre of the room.

In the clear liquid, straining against the bindings that keep him submerged under the surface, is Huei Tori. His steel-grey eyes flash in his strained features, and his black-trousered legs flex in their restraints.

"How is our brave little Nautolan Jedi?" Zan Arbor inquires, her smile widening as a predator's does before the kill.

"His vitals are all in the normal range, albeit on the edge," one of the assistants, a Weequay, reports. "We don't know if the Force-blocker is working, of course, but it's quite remarkable, seeing as we decreased the oxygen content of the water to 40% of its normal level an hour ago. The temperature is well below the Nautolan threshold for hypothermia, as well."

"Hmm." Zan Arbor strides over to the tank and plunges a hand into the freezing water, tracing it across the dark blue skin of Huei's forehead. The young Nautolan's face contorts in a grimace of disgust. "Ah!" she exclaims, pulling back her fingers as Huei's white teeth snap together a hairsbreadth from her nails.

"Get him a gag," Zan Arbor snarls as she pivots, flinging drops of crystalline liquid from her fingertips. "And keep lowering the oxygen content. We need to know his limits before further experimentation. And have someone start work on the other Jedi once his allergic symptoms are gone."

"Yes, ma'am," the other assistant, a Rodian, intones.

As she leaves, Jenna Zan Arbor does not deign to turn around and observe how Huei's back arches in agonising protest as a thermoplast plug is rammed between his teeth, or how precious bubbles of air form a silent shout that cascades from his lips.

She has more important things to do, and more experiments to attend to.

(:~:)

It is seldom that Jedi masters Qui-Gon Jinn and Tamesis Dooku meet on such short notice, and in such a state of shared emotion. As soon as the schoolday ends and Qui-Gon barges into the shabby apartment that serves as headquarters, a mere three klicks from the ZAAGC, Dooku knows the Force will not be centred.

"Obi-Wan–"

"We know, padawan," Dooku interrupts, leaning down next to Kit Fisto to examine the holo-feeds from the laboratory. "Huei, too."

Qui-Gon does not comment on Dooku's slip of tongue. He flings long coat into a corner and starts forward, blue irises icy. "Master–"

"Calm yourself," Dooku growls, glancing up. In that short connection of gazes, Qui-Gon sees multitudes, and knows that Dooku hides much.

With long breath, he slides into a chair beside the Natuolan knight and his former master. "Anything?" Qui-Gon says quietly.

"Huei sent us some intel before they got to him. We caught a glimpse of Huei a few minutes ago," Kit mutters, pulling up the relevant footage. His trademark smile is gone, replaced by a grimace of concentration. "There aren't any holo-cams inside the rooms themselves, so we've been relying on the short space of time when doors open to focus on the interior of the laboratories."

The holo-footage is as short at it is horrifying. Qui-Gon notices Dooku's lined features are a study in neutrality as the shimmering blue image of his padawan's back arches in pain in the churning water, over and over on the looped clip.

Jenna Zan Arbor's transparent blue face grins as she steps out of the open doorway and out of range of the camera, leaving the door to swing closed upon the agony of the room within.

Dooku pauses the holoprojector. The pause weighs heavily in the air, a suffocating pressure, much like the thin, lifeless water that strains through Huei's lungs, every moment the three Jedi stand there, in that darkened room.

Kit is the first to speak. "What do we do, masters?" he murmurs, looking somewhat like a senior padawan in need of guidance.

"We cannot leave them there," Qui-Gon says, sounding once more as his rank and title suggests.

"No, we cannot," Dooku agrees, rubbing a hand over his beard. "Not indefinitely."

Qui-Gon's Force-signature withdraws into a sharp crystal of incredulity. "If you would clarify, Master Dooku," he states slowly, softly, half-rising from his chair.

"That," Dooku says, pointing at the frozen holoprojector, "may not be sufficient evidence to bring Zan Arbor to trial."

There is another pause, disbelief and fury blooming in the Force this time, a red thundercloud that seems to swell into being between the two Jedi masters. Kit sinks a bit further in his chair, glancing away.

"Are you–" Qui-Gon finds that anger chokes his throat, and he has to begin again. "Are you suggesting we allow our padawans to be tortured like labroratory O'cerries?" His voice has dropped into a snarl, dripping with rage.

Dooku's grey eyes return his former padawan's stare with ineffectual coolness. "If necessary to ensure Zan Arbor's incarceration, yes."

Qui-Gon closes his eyes for a moment, seeking peace, to anchor himself in the Force once more.

Breathe. Release.

When he opens his eyes, his gaze is brittle and hard, the same burning glare he would throw in his master's direction during particularly effusive arguments in his padawan days.

"Our mission is to acquire intel of Zan Arbor's exploits, nothing more," he says, striving to keep the simmering fury from his voice. "Now we have proof of what she is doing to the students, we can pull out and report our findings to the Council."

"And what would the Council's next step be?" Dooku challenges, something akin to exasperated anger flashing through his narrowed eyes. "We need evidence. Those few seconds are hardly enough – we have no proof for the Council to show the planet authorities."

"This is torture, Dooku." Qui-Gon ignores the glimmer of unbalance in Dooku's gaze at this form of address. "The code does not speak expressly of it, but this is far beyond what would qualify as a trial. How could you suggest such an action?"

Dooku draws himself up to his full height, allowing his dark cloak to sweep back over his shoulders. Qui-Gon realises for the first time that his former master is dressed in the resplendent silver and black of a count, while he is in the simple shirt and waistcoat of a teacher.

"Because Huei can take it." Dooku's words are chilled into the icy edge of utter certainty.

Qui-Gon finds his retort fading on his lips.

"My padawan can take it," Dooku repeats, one elegant hand fingering the hidden hilt of his lightsaber. His gaze skewers Qui-Gon's, unyielding and harsh. "Can yours?"

A long, long, moment, wavering on the edge of an abyss in the Force. Qui-Gon stares at Dooku, wondering why he had ever once thought of the sentinel as his mentor, and friend.

"Yes." The word falls hollow into the still air.

"Are you certain?"

"Yes." Qui-Gon repeats, though his eyes are shadowed now, dead. "But here lies the difference between you and I, my former Master."

Kit studies the tabletop as the two masters stage a war of wills.

"The difference," Qui-Gon says quietly, "is that though we both are confident of our padawans' abilities, I will not be his torturer, while you will."

"Necessity."

"No more, Master. No more." Qui-Gon runs a hand over his mane of hair as he turns back towards the door. The prime window to attempt an extraction will be tomorrow night." His voice is emotionlessly flat as he states each fact. "Even particularly workers will likely return home for the last day of the week. The laboratory will be running on a skeleton staff."

"Very well." Dooku turns away from the silhouette of his former apprentice, facing the holo-feeds again, as though he faces an intangible opponent. "We have a night and a day to plan the extraction."

Kit releases a long breath as the Force slowly uncoils from its knot of tension, leaving frayed edges of what was once a familiar bond.

When he speaks, Dooku's words are oddly heavy. "Necessity. What I do to Huei now…if it was necessary, Qui-Gon, I would have done to you."

Qui-Gon knows it shouldn't affect him. He has had decades to distance himself from his former master, and he himself is a Jedi Master now, seen battle and war, blood and agony, felt the lives of friends slip through his fingers.

And yet this is painful anyway.

He glances over his shoulder, a mirthless smile playing on his lips. "I don't doubt it. And that is why I refuse to do the same to Obi-Wan."

The awful truth settles in the Force. Former master and padawan face each other once more, their once-vibrant bond whittled down to nothing more than a bridge of sheer necessity.

And far, far below in the laboratories, Obi-Wan wakes, and Zan Arbor begins.

Chapter Text

Saturday morning for Ezhno is usually an opportunity to indulge in doing absolutely nothing. Most students will be home; only the truly homeless ones such as Ezhno stay behind in the almost-deserted academy. So, he takes the lack of activity as permission for lethargy. This particular morning, however, is an exception.

"Oi! Oi!" The lanky Togruta hollers as he hammers incessantly on the door to the medical wing. "Lemme in! Me best friend's in there! An' don' think yer can 'oodwink me! You can take all yer tripe 'bout visitin' hours an' all that and stuff it!"

The panel beside the door still flashes ACCESS DENIED, and the door itself remains without a dent, despite Ezhno's liberal application of violence in his quest to visit Obi-Wan's sickbed. The corridor itself is empty. Not one of the weekend academy staff dares threaten the raving student's space.

"I'm breakin' down the stinkin' door!" Ezhno backs up against the opposite wall and crouches low, sinking into a ready stance that conveys all of his species' predatory ancestry. His earthen-brown eyes darkening almost to black, Ezhno lunges toward the solid stretch of durasteel–

–only to catch himself in mid-air and tumble to a graceless sprawl at feet of the white-coated woman who stands framed in the doorway.

"Miss!" Ezhno knows he must sound ridiculously relieved. "I gotta–"

"Quiet, child," she snaps, cutting him off with a glacial stare made somehow sharper by the coiffed edges of her blonde hair.

Ezhno cannot hear her tone – all spoken words are mouthed shapes to him – but her indifference is somehow glaringly obvious, even through lip-reading. "Say, 'ere!" he begins angrily, leaping up off the floor. "I dunno who yer are, but I–"

A hand curls on his shoulder from behind, and Ezhno pivots in place just in time to lip-read the rushed words of principal's young female assistant. who grasps a handful of his uniform. Her youthful features – she cannot possibly be more than five years older than him – are closed in contrite apology.

"My apologies, Doctor Zan Arbor! I'll take him away for disciplinary action."

So the scientist before him is the founder of the school herself! Ezhno opens his mouth to protest, but the sound dies on his lips as he catches the spark of fear in the young woman's eyes. He has always been skilled in reading people – being deaf is nearly equal to invisibility in some circles – and the hidden panic in the body language of the girl beside him is all to obvious. Gold-striped montrals swinging, Ezhno glances back at the other woman – Zan Arbor, Jenna Zan Arbor, founder of the school– and sees nothing but contempt in those grey irises.

"See that you do, miss Hika. I have other experiments to monitor." With a sweep of spotless white fabric, Zan Arbor turns and paces swiftly down the corridor.

A vague, unsettled feeling remains in Ezhno's stomach even when she is gone. It takes a moment for him to realise how strange it is that Zan Arbor would head away from the medical wing and school laboratories when she had so obviously mentioned returning to her experiments.

He blinks and turns back to the older girl – Hika – only to find her mouth moving rapidly. She must have been speaking for quite some time. As it is, he only catches the latter half of her last sentence

"–of all the idiotic things you could possibly have done!" Hika seethes, giving Ezhno's arm a jarring yank as she harries him down the corridor. At her captive's frown, she flashes a frustrated glance at him. "Shut up, Ezhno."

She knows m'name?

Thoroughly confused, with the gold stripes of his montrals darkening to the colour of honey, Ezhno allows himself to be dragged back to his and Obi-Wan's room – Hika seems to know exactly where it is, for some reason – and deposited into the chair by his desk. He lands in a gangly sprawl of growing limbs.

Hika flicks back chin-length dark hair and sits opposite him without further preamble.

Neither of them say anything for a moment.

Ezhno breaks the silence as only he can – bluntly. "Wot 'bout Obi-Wan?" he growls, baring sharp canines in a scowl. "Yer the principal-whatnot's assistant. You can tell me."

"You don't want to know, and you can't know." Hika's lips move far less than required for usual speech; Ezhno deduces she must be speaking in a whisper. But then she grimaces as if remembering something, and drops her head into her hands, mouthing something to herself.

To Ezhno, the soundless words ring clear as the toll of funeral bells, so easily read.

"Stars, they're not Jedi. They're just children. And they're being–" With a start, Hika's gaze snaps up to meet Ezhno's. "Blast it. I forgot you could lip-read. You got all of that, didn't you?" she sighs.

The Togruta boy nods slowly, too thrown by the impossible revelation those words bring.

Hika's shoulders shake; Ezhno jerks forward out of his chair, only to realise she is not crying, but laughing. Despite being soundless to him, the mirthless chuckles still unnerve him to no end. He has seen people of his race laugh like so before, back on Shili. Those too poor to feed their children, or those with everything, but have no one to care for. It is a laugh of despair.

"Who're you?" The question slips out before he realises it had risen in his throat.

Still shaking, Hika rubs at her eyes tiredly. "An agent," she answers.

"Who for?"

"I can't tell you. The less you know, the better." It is easier to read her words now; her lips are no longer quivering with hidden tears. The seeds of understanding begin to flower in Ezhno's mind. Sudden nausea has him gripping the arms of his chair.

"Obi-Wan's not in the medical wing, is he," he says hollowly. It isn't a question.

Hika shakes her head mutely. She leans forward, placing her elbows on her neatly pressed dark trousers. It occurs to Ezhno she looks nothing like an inside agent; rather, she is the image of a young office worker. But her eyes are a different story now; narrowed, focused, despite the fear still present in them. The desperation of a moment before seems eons away.

"If you want to help Obi-Wan, I need you to do something for me," she says, slowly and carefully. "They'll have hacked our comm frequency from the ones Obi-Wan and Huei had in their possession – don't worry about who that is, I'll explain once all this is over – so give me your 'pad."

Ezhno hands her his standard-issue student datapad, and watches as she keys in a few commands.

"I've linked your 'pad with mine," Hika says quietly. "When the time comes, I'll send you an alert. It should read LIGHTSABER – don't ask what that is– and the very moment you receive it, go ballistic on the school network."

"Wot?" Ezhno wonders if his eyes have deceived him. "Did you just tell me to–"

"Yes." Hika flicks off the 'pad display with a flourish. "Go crazy. You're the student behind that systems crash a few months back, aren't you? You should thank me. I saved your sorry butt. For a prodigy in hacking and slicing you really should cover your tracks better."

"And 'ow was I s'posed to know they could track my student ID?" Ezhno mumbles.

Hika rubs her temples and grimaces as she replies. "Hack the school system. I don't have the skills for it, so I've given you my password for the first layer of security. After that, you'll have to slice deeper yourself. Get deep enough, and you'll find it's connected to a whole other network. A lab's."

"A lab?" Ezhno still sounds uncertain.

Impatience and frustration flashes in Hika's eyes. "Yes. The more you mess up the two linked systems, the better chance Obi-Wan will have of making it out alive!"

"Alive…" The implied horror makes Ezhno's gorge rise, choking him, silencing him.

Hika glances at him. "I'm sorry. I've said too much. Can't have you getting too deep into this." She heads for the door.

"I'll do whatever you say." Ezhno murmurs, his exuberant accent fading. "Can you promise me Lil' Obi will be fine?"

Hika's short brown hair seems to form an impenetrable helmet around her head as she turns at the door. "No," she replies.

Ezhno turns to face the blank, blank wall that is Obi-Wan's side of the room, and realises he can see nothing of his friend in the neat row of books and crisply-made bed.

And he realises he doesn't really know Obi-Wan at all.

(:~:)

The Force is screaming.

It twists and warps the very air into a single, concentrated howl of agony, cleaving the glaring, stark lights above into infinite chasms of flaming brimstone. The world is slathered with vivid brushstrokes of scarlet and ochre, shuddering with the sobbing, stunted breaths of a cornered hatchling that shrieks voicelessly for its sire. Here, there is no time; the Unifying Force curls the tapestry of the galaxy in on itself, forming an inescapable, looping path of fleeing footprints on a burning shore of black sand.

Sequestered away in the darkest, dripping hollow of this wasteland that is his mind, the infinitesimal part of Obi-Wan Kenobi that is still coherent enough to form words cries out for his master. But the words are snatched away in the maelstrom of fettered shards that was once the Force.

In the prison of his body, Obi-Wan is aware of a multitude of things: the numb pressure of the bindings on his wrists; jagged lines in his vision; the screams bottled in his gullet, hammering against the barrier of his lips until his throat feels as though it could burst, spewing his insides across tear-streaked cheeks as the fishermen of Mon Cala rip out the soft, blackened guts of shellfish, leaving only nerveless, senseless flesh behind, enclosed in a hardened façade of blue-lipped shell that even now is crumbling, leaving his mind bare to the storm.

After a while, Obi-Wan can no longer tell whether he hears the scrabbling of his torn fingernails against the table or the scraping whirs of the tiny saws the droids extend towards him.

And then abruptly, there is silence.

For a moment, Obi-Wan can only close his eyes and turn his head to the side. The relief is so great that he thinks he could gladly drown in it, join the Force that remains so close, yet out of his reach – and rest for eternity.

Words echo somewhere close, penetrating his haze of pain as easily as needle though cloth. "Have you kept him on the Force-blocker?"

Strange, how that woman's voice can sound so clinically empty and cunningly monstrous all at once. Obi-Wan fails to repress a shudder of fear and revulsion as cold hands touch his cheek, pulling back an eyelid. In the short burst of luminance, Jenna Zan Arbor's profile is blurred in a film of tears, but her lips are somehow in focus, painted crimson as though with blood.

They part in a smile, revealing perfect white teeth that might as well be fangs. "So you are awake after all, little one."

The warm trickle of fear flowing from the corners of Obi-Wan's eyes flash-freezes, crystallising and sharpening into spikes of icy, dark-rimmed rage, screaming She dares to use Master's name for me in the emptiness of his suddenly shadowed mind; the fury that burns like frozen fire in his veins is an intoxicating rush of unadulterated power, with which he seizes the fettered shards of the Force and wrenches it towards himself, seeking to feed the pulsing forge of hate that is his heart–

No.

With an inhuman effort, Obi-Wan cleaves himself from the Force, feeling its strings snap back and lash him like recoiling whips, sending the torrent of rushing darkness back into the far corners of the room, leaving him breathless with self-inflicted agony. In the grey badlands of his mind, his last, tiny light flutters, a match-flame gasping in sympathy with the uneven wind of his breath.

Somewhere off to his right, a machine erupts in a klaxon alarm, and a white-coated laboratory assistant shouts as he rushes to examine it.

The enormity of what he had been about to do takes what is left of Obi-Wan's shredded confidence and rends it asunder. Zan Arbor cannot feel the Force. Obi-Wan reflects that perhaps he should be grateful for it; he at least has the minute relief that she cannot read deep enough through his thin mask of resolve to see the sea of self-doubt he is now drowning within.

But she must have seen something, for her artificial smile widens voluptuously as she flies from one reader to another.

"Beautiful," Zan Arbor breathes, warping the word, her once-youthful features harshly illuminated in a ghostly shadow of the green-lit display. "You cannot speak, but not because of an anatomical defect, but because of this…this Force." For a moment, she seems to waver on a cliff-edge of emotion. "Tissue sample!" she snaps at a droid, slightly breathless with the thrill of new discovery.

The droid, having no purpose or inbuilt program save the command to obey, has the added advantage of having no touch sensors to register the spurt of warm scarlet liquid that sprays over its metal arm as it extracts a sample of bone marrow, without administering an anaesthetic of any sort beforehand.

When the red haze over his vision clears enough for him to sob a breath, Obi-Wan catches the reflection of his arm in the line of blinking readers, and immediately wishes he had not. His left forearm looks an exact replica of the ice cliffs he scaled on Ilum, all those months ago, when the Living Force was warm, and Unifying Force still innocent.

Not anymore, of course.

He fights the most absurd desire to laugh, only to convulse in choking, soundless gasps of black humour when he remembers he cannot laugh anyhow. The effort leave Obi-Wan lightheaded. He is somewhat gratified, however, when the smallest of creases between Zan Arbor's eyebrows reveals that this act has done a fabulous job of unsettling the scientist.

Fabulous,  he muses. What a fantastically splendid word. Fabulous.

Obi-Wan soon discovers another perk of his growing delirium is that Zan Arbor once more begins to speak to her assistants as if he is not there. They do not seem to realise his ears are functioning perfectly normally.

"Doctor Zan Arbor, we've examined this stone flute he had with him, and it's virtually unbreakable! It seems to resonate whenever he's in pain though we don't think–"

"Doctor, this is quite marvellous…"

One of the assistants – a Rodian with bulging reflective eyes and a disinterested sneer on his tubular lips – pauses in the middle of a sentence, as if realising something. "Hey, if this Force mumbo-jumbo is stopping his speech, shouldn't the Force-blocker free it?"

Zan Arbor quiets him with a withering stare, allowing the silence to fill the room with premonition. When she speaks, it is with a voice like acidic honey. "So it should. Perhaps it would have by now if you had bothered to work him over enough to elicit a verbal response?"

"Yes, ma'am," the other assistant mumbles quickly, nudging her quailing companion. "We'll explore other options."

"No," Zan Arbor declares, after what appears to be a moment's consideration. "Get out, all of you." The room empties quickly, scientist and Jedi alone, if only for an instant. Zan Arbor's hand brushes the wall-panel, and the door slides open to reveal a hover-cart steered by yet another white-coated individual. And on the chemical-stained metal surface, nestled in a cushion, is what some would call a masterpiece.

A finely sculpted crystal bottle, its neck elegantly arched and plugged with real cork, conveying elegance and deadly intent simultaneously. Within the curve of its bowl, colourless liquid oscillates in flawless ellipses with the movement of the cart, strange vapours rising from its surface like tortured wisps of smoke. The fluid is somehow empty; more transparent than the crystal that carries it, more of a void than the air swirling over its rippling surface.

"This," Zan Arbor murmurs, "is one of my newest inventions." Delicately, she lifts the flask from its nest and uncorks it, cooing like a mother presenting her newborn child to its older brother. "This cordial, Little Jedi," she sighs lovingly as she crouches level to Obi-Wan's face, "is distilled Azariel. It is very, very special, for it only dissolves living tissue."

Obi-Wan stares at her, head titled on the table, uncomprehending.

The scientist sighs again, annoyed, as if explaining the theories of the universe to an idiotic child. "This will not burn through the metal table, or the plastimold cuffs on your wrists, or even your clothes." She pauses for effect, grinning mirthlessly as she continues in a secretive whisper. "But what it will do, my dear, is sear through living flesh."

Her wrist tilts minutely, and a single drop falls from the crystal lip, forming a perfect raindrop as it falls in exquisite timlessness onto the bare skin of Obi-Wan's shoulder.

The agony is so immense that for a moment, he feels nothing; and then he is writhing on the harsh metal like a fish gutted alive, the taste of iron on his lips as he inadvertently bites his tongue. Before this moment, he had never thought that pain could be concentrated; but this, beyond all logical reasoning, does exactly that. A patch of flesh on his shoulder the size of a coin blazes as though a miniature lightsaber were hammered into the bone.

Zan Arbor tuts softly. "Will you scream, Obi-Wan? Just for me?"

Although he cannot see the damage – and he is relieved he cannot – Obi-Wan imagines his skin must be peeling back from the searing liquid like carpet from ammonia.

Not a pleasant thought.

Through blurred pupils, Obi-Wan watches Zan Arbor rise, seemingly satisfied with his performance despite the lack of audible screams. "Come, Vassar," she orders, gesturing at the white-coated man who stands at the doorway, propping the door open with the heavy metal cart. On closer inspection, the man called Vassar can only be described as utterly repugnant. Curtains of lank, filthy hair frame an oily, pale face, with features so utterly forgettable that for one awful instant Obi-Wan believes he stares up at a hunch-backed, faceless humanoid.

"Vassar will be taking over. And he'll do a much better job than the useless animals from before, won't you, Vassar?" The last part is directed at the plainly starstruck assistant, who smiles widely at Zan Arbor, revealing a few rotted teeth and nothing else.

It takes Obi-Wan a long, long minute to realise that the man's tongue has been cut out.

He tears his gaze away from that horrible, cavernous maw and blinks sluggishly at the harsh lights of the corridor. Is it his imagination, or is that security holo-cam pointing directly at him?

But then Zan Arbor is patting his cheek in farewell, and the door closes on her and the blank lens of the holo-cam, leaving only the toothless, tongueless smile of a madman behind.

(:~:)

Jerking back from the holo-display, Kit Fisto tumbles out of his chair and empties the contents of his stomach onto the ragged carpet. When he is done, he staggers to his feet, anger brimming behind his opaque eyes. Behind him, Qui-Gon Jinn still stares unblinkingly ahead, his mouth carved in hard lines. Caught in a live loop, the flickering blue images replay again and again, like a cheap holo-vid with violence too far-fetched to possibly be realistic.

The irony that it is very real indeed does not escape them.

It is only when the silence remains unbroken for a long span of minutes does the third Jedi in the chamber rise from his seat. Dooku gestures, and the holo-recording disappears into its projector. Not that it matters – for his former padawan, the images are already seared permanently into clear blue irises, as if the shut holo were an extinguished fire and the Obi-Wan's agonised ghost the smoky remnants of the flames.

"How long?" A voice, disembodied with effort to remain controlled.

Another pace, and Dooku reaches the speaker's side. His tall, dark-cloaked form offers about as much comfort as an Archive statue would to a youngling. The question posed to him is an enigma. How long – How long until the moon and stars finish their exquisitely slow dance into position, leaving the two Jedi masters able to free their padawans? How long has their padawans' presences been voids in the Force, black holes torn in the glowing fabric of the galaxy?

No, Dooku decides. None of these; for the question is simply a veil for another.

The question is how much longer.

How much longer  would they have to stay here, watching the innocence being torn out of their children's shuddering souls?

And so Dooku chooses not to answer at all.

"Peace, Qui-Gon," he admonishes.

Wrong choice of words. Qui-Gon's icy cerulean gaze snaps upward to meet his former master's grey irises. The Force is cleaved ruthlessly in twain between them, a torrent of chilled water exploding forth from a melting glacier, only to find itself held back by solid, unyielding duracrete.

"Peace! It has been a night and nearly a day! We cannot even expect contact from our agent within, because our communicators are most certainly hacked."

"Calm yourself, Qui-Gon." The cold duracrete of that gaze seems to harden further.

"Peace does not equate to lack of compassion." The currents churn.

The wall stands, unmarked, undaunted. "Your compassion clouds your judgement, Padawan."

"I am no longer your padawan." Words, hissed through clenched teeth like steam from a geothermal fissure.

"A wonder, as you seem to have learnt nothing in the years since."

"You–" Qui-Gon jars to a halt, clenching his eyes shut in a pained grimace as something echoes in the Force, a cry mangled by distance and clouded by drugs. Kit flinches as the backlash surges through his shields, and stumbles back against his chair.

"Obi-Wan?" The Nautolan's green headtails are paler than usual as he turns to Qui-Gon, and his accented voice is rough.

"No. There was a voice." Qui-Gon groans, grinding his teeth together in an effort to quell the nausea rising within. The Force seems to rise with their gorges, burning, acidic; If not Obi-Wan, then who–

–and Dooku staggers over to the incinerator, collapsing onto his knees beside it as inhuman retches are torn from him, disgorging what little he had consumed since his padawan's capture. And when his stomach is empty, he continues to retch, bringing up nothing but sour bile. One word falls from his lips, tumbling filth-stained into the artificial emptiness.

"Huei…"

Qui-Gon and Kit can do nothing save stare and gasp at the shuddering air. The Force seems to churn with each agonising heave, screaming in synchrony with the young voice of one of its children, and with the burning minds of three of its grown ones.

And then the Force thins and stretches taut, like string vibrating with tension. It is not quite at rest, but it will have to do for the moment.

With trembling, once-elegant fingers, Dooku slides the incinerator closed, leaning against the wall and allowing his weight to slide to the floor. One expensive black sleeve reaches up and wipes across the colourless lips, marring the silken fabric with an acidic stain, a tarnished blemish across the perfect smoothness of a shadow.

And then Dooku blinks with swollen eyelids and meets Qui-Gon's gaze with grey irises far more clouded than the norm.

The two Jedi stare at each other across a path forged by mutual agony, one curled against the wall, the other slumped nerveless in a ratty chair. Their panting breaths mist the air; one of them must have kicked out the thermoregulator switch in their pain. The last of Huei's – no, transferred as Dooku's – nausea shivers across a long-lost road of a fraying bond and snaps across Qui-Gon's mind like a whip.

Qui-Gon's hands are slick with sweat, clenched white on the armrests, a thin line of red running under one wrist where the rusted metal has sliced into a finger. His brown mane is all in disarray, cast about the shoulders of his soaked tunics. The lines of Dooku's face seem to suddenly deepen, casting his features in wax, as though he were a corpse half-embalmed. Qui-Gon sweeps sweat-limned hair out of his eyes and gazes blankly at his former master, wondering why his heart suddenly leaps into his throat and a terrible uncertainty grows in the tepid currents of the Living Force.

Those wrinkled hands that Qui-Gon has seen twirling a lightsaber in perfect Makashi half-moons thousands of times are now shaking, fisted in the folds of a dark cloak that somehow dwarfs its occupant, seeming to emphasise the frailty of the form huddled within it, the once-powerful shoulders, the imposing figure that is now reduced to reputation and legend alone. That head of combed hair had been a rich brown in Qui-Gon's apprenticeship days, but now glitters pure silver in the light of the dusk sky outside.

The realisation, when it occurs to Qui-Gon, is as simple as it is thunderous.

Dooku appears…old.

Here, in this musty room with slatted blinds, in this half-lit chamber where they wait for the Force's call, there is no master or apprentice, no father and son, no maverick, shadow, light or dark.

They are two Jedi, shattered.

After a while, Dooku rises stiffly, his rumpled cloak pooling around shoulders stooped with the weight of emotion.

Former master and apprentice share one last glance, not of animosity or frustration, but of pure, anguished understanding.

As twilight wears on to evening, the silence remains, settling like fog on the still-cooling girders of the bridge between them, originally forged by necessity, and now painted with terrible knowledge.

There is nothing to be said.

And then the soft knock-knock on the door shivers the air, and the silence coalesces into focus.

(:~:)

Amusing,  Obi-Wan contemplates, that pain can be so…clear.

Vassar – Zan Arbor's pawn – is anything but not meticulous. There is a terrifying precision in the manner with which the humanoid operates, a clinical sterility in those twisted fingers and pitchless chuckles.

Obi-Wan is glad, in a way. Precision leads to discipline, discipline forms ritual, and ritual weaves a pattern. A pattern of pain, the arrhythmic tempo of a discordant melody; but all melodies can be predicted. And Obi-Wan is a master in listening.

Gently, he takes the music in the frayed fabric of his wandering mind, turns it over in senseless fingers, examines it, memorises it, until the rhythm forms the neatly mathematical tempo of a twisted song. Each fresh burst of pain is nothing more than a note on the five-lined score of razor wires, the sawing, tuneless melody of agony.

But Obi-Wan does not care for the notes. Instead, he waits for the rests. Each rest is a pause, a drawing of breath, and a brief reprieve. In these moments of silence, the notes fade into echoes of distant torture, and resting in the timeless pauses before the next harsh chord, Obi-Wan can think.

There is something knocking at the edge of his awareness, slipping out of his grasp like oiled slate each time he reaches for it. The Force and its answers are sealed from him, so he has naught but himself to reason with. Obi-Wan growls in frustration…and he loses his hold on the melody of pain for a half-beat, displacing him in a shriek of bow sliding off string. The next broken chord catches him unawares like a garrotte to his throat.

A soundless scream is rent from his lips.

And with it, sudden clarity blossoms from within, like the sharp crimson petals of a blood lily unfolding to reveal a throat full of golden nectar.

Zan Arbor had said that deprived of the Force, he should be able to speak.

So why can't I?

There is only one answer, wrought from improbability, but made possible by sheer logic.

If he cannot reach the Force around him, then there must be a Force within.

Obi-Wan does not pause to ask why, or how. "Ask not of the Force!" Master Yoda had always said. "Listen, you must!" Obi-Wan ceases to struggle against the walls that separate him from the Force outside his mind, and delves deep into himself, seeking not to center, but to find his center.

He ceases to exist in the physical world.

Vassar gives a toneless shriek of horror as his specimen goes limp, amidst a cacophony of wailing machines announcing the boy's apparent tip over the proverbial mortal coil. The stooped creature of a man lunges for the door and flees, no doubt seeking Zan Arbor.

Somewhere on the edge of consciousness, Obi-Wan feels heat at his throat, a glistening lodestone of swirling light. Reaching out with a mental hand, he taps the glowing ember with a single finger.

The roar of power throws him back into his body with the gentleness of a mother gundark handling a wayward kit. Golden light surges through sluggish veins, purging the Force-blocker from his system in a searing wave of fire. He grimaces at afterburn, but it is a good pain; the pain of freedom hard-won, like the ache of blood returning to muscles long-deprived of sustenance, not artificial agony.

Shifting his weight, Obi-Wan is met with, surprisingly, no resistance at all. He spares a half-second to realise that the restraints must have melted off his wrists before he crashes gracelessly to the tiled floor. The room spins sickeningly around him, splashes of gaudy colour dancing before his eyes. Obi-Wan curls in on himself, cradling his ruined arm as he frantically gulps in the Force like a child starved of milk. Nothing has ever tasted quite so sweet.

He reflects that he probably should get moving, but his resolve fails at the last moment and he reaches for an anchor.

Struggling against the inflowing currents, Obi-Wan searches for the bridge that links him to to his master. But the Force-impermeable walls hinder his progress; he only receives a muted sense of recognition in answer.

But it is enough. With only a vague idea of what he is doing, but nurturing a growing sense of determination, Obi-Wan staggers to his feet, lurches over to pick up his grey stone flute…and walks face-first into the door.

Collapsing back onto his rear, he stares dully at the bio-security lock for a few seconds.

Oh. Sithspit.

As if in answer, his flute trembles in his hand. Obi-Wan glances blankly down at it, allowing his too-heavy head to tilt to the side. Is it the delirium getting to him, or are the etched vines shimmering with silver?

Sluggish memory wakes within him, of kneeling in the dormitory gardens and conducting a symphony in the Force, of vines spreading into a pattern of freshly grown fronds with him at its centre.

The Force is muffled here, contained within these four opaque walls; Obi-Wan draws barely enough breath into his battered lungs for himself; and there is not one speck of life in this necropolis of a laboratory to channel Living or Unifying Force–

–and yet the flute is singing.

With trembling fingers and shortened breath, Obi-Wan brings the flute to his lips and blows a single, toneless note, more of a hollow whisper than the beginning of a melody, the pathetic, last sigh of utter exhaustion.

The door makes a dreadfully loud smashing sound as it falls heavily into the corridor beyond, separated from its hydraulic hinges by a precise slice of the Force.

Obi-Wan blinks, fingers still frozen above the tone-holes of his flute. Unbidden, his mouth falls open in shock.

Most intriguing.

And then the raging blare of alarms spears his ears with sound, the air shudders crimson-white with the flashing of security lights.

"Intruders. All staff evacuate to exit B-9 until the intruders are dealt with," a mechanised voice announces.

How convenient,  Obi-Wan muses dryly. Grimacing, he tucks his flute into the waistband of his trousers, drags himself to his feet, and begins the first of his many staggering steps down the corridor.

(:~:)

Jedi masters Tamesis Dooku and Qui-Gon Jinn are ruthlessly practical in storming the laboratory.

The inside contact – one Miss Hika – had hammered on their door at sundown, bringing breathless news that the changing of the shifts for security would soon occur. Dooku and Qui-Gon had moved immediately, knowing that the guards would be impatient to leave – and hence least attentive – during the last fifteen minutes of their shift, giving the Jedi a small window of time with which to enter the laboratories and redeem their padawans.

What they hadn't accounted for was one of the guards managing to shake off – albeit not completely successfully – Force-compulsion placed on him and activating the alarm before one well-placed blow to the neck rendered him unconscious.

Now, the liquid scarlet of emergency lighting bathes former master and padawan in alternating flashes of blood and white paint as they advance down the winding corridors at a brisk clip, leaving a swathe of comatose bodies in their wake.

Kit Fisto's accented voice relays a continuous stream of instructions into their ears. "Tracking your location. The alarms cut our holo-cam feeds, but I have a rough map of the laboratory constructed from what footage we have already seen. Qui-Gon, you are approaching Obi-Wan's examination chamber. One more hallway, then take a left, and he should be the sixth room on your right."

Qui-Gon taps his comm to reply, but Dooku's low growl reaches his hears first. "And Huei?" the stern Sentinel queries, his grey gaze as calm and cold as frosted crystal.

"Right, left, bypass the next two corridors, left again, and the first door on your right."

"Received," Dooku replies. His mouth thins further until it is but harsh white line carved into wooden features.

Qui-Gon flashes a glance fraught with his own concern at Dooku. If he were not worried enough about Obi-Wan, he would feel gut-wrenching dread for Huei. The walls of Zan Arbor's vast laboratory are Force-impermeable. For Huei's agony to reach his master through such barriers…

At the next turn-off – a crossroad of four corridors – Qui-Gon halts. "I'm going to retrieve Obi-Wan. You should – assassin droid!"

The shouted warning is echoed by the Force's shriek of alarm.

A blazing bar of yellow-gold flame leaps from Dooku's hands, meeting the bolt of blue energy half-way and sending it in a blistering line directly back at its black-tentacled shooter. Purple shields thrum in a circle around the droid as the energy is absorbed. A hiss-snap of harlequin starfire by his side signals Qui-Gon's leap into the fray, but when the scent of ozone and the ugly sound of blaster-fire reaches Dooku from behind, Dooku realises that they have more than one pile of metal to dispose of.

Two well-designed, ridiculously expensive, battle-programmed piles of metal, in fact.

Back-to-back, the two Jedi carve a sphere of green-gold light about their center, deflecting simultaneous barrages of plasma bolts down two opposite corridors. Dust and wires cascade down on them as deflected shots demolish the walls. The empty silence of the twin hallways perpendicular to the fight echoes dangerously; should reinforcements appear down either length, the Jedi would be caught in crossfire – and most likely rejoin the Force.

Wordlessly, they reach to their belts, palm their padawans' lightsabers, and move effortlessly into Jar'Kai. Obi-Wan's azure and Huei's sapphire blades join the dance, painting the air the colour of sunlight shining through leaves onto water.

Qui-Gon hears Dooku's pained grunt from behind him as a shot whirrs over his shoulder and slams into the droid he faces. Makashi – Dooku's preferred lightsaber form – is no longer widely practiced in the ranks of the Order, and with good reason. Makashi is tailored specifically for dueling; the elegant wrist-movements and energy-saving maneuvers are highly effective against another lightsaber, but next to useless against a pummeling rain of blaster bolts. That is not to say that Dooku is helpless in a battle such as this – it is only that exhaustion creeps up to him far faster than it does to his former apprentice. They would have to end this, and soon.

Dooku's growl is nearly lost in the cacophony of shattering duracrete. "Padawan, on my mark!"

Faced by such a situation as this, Qui-Gon does not question Dooku's choice of words. He nods assent, and the Force swells with him, between them. And…now! Moving in unison, they each extend a hand towards a droid, crushing them in vice-like grips and whipping them up and back, bringing the two squid-like forms together in a satisfying crunch above the Jedi's heads. The swirling purple energy shields short out on contact with each other similar polarity.

As the two droids plummet downwards, Qui-Gon and Dooku execute perfectly–mirrored rolls in opposite directions, coming up together and pivoting as one to eviscerate the assassin droids in a single stroke of blazing light and heat.

The smell of burnt slag fouls the air as 'sabers snap back into their hilts. Former master and padawan pick their way through the debris into a relatively clear spot, and stare at each other mutely for a few moments.

Qui-Gon is the first to speak. "This is strange. There should have been more coming."

"Yes." Dooku fingers the curved hilt of his lightsaber as he nudges the glowing edge of a sheared droid-tentacle with his foot. "Reinforcements are being waylaid…but by what, I wonder?"

The flashing scarlet lights cut out for a moment, then start up again, as if chuckling in response to Dooku's question. And of a sudden, the ceiling seems to burst, and chemical-scented water cascades down on them, drenching them in flamm retardant and foam.

"Anti-fire systems activated!" Qui-Gon shouts through the blinding shower.

With difficulty, they slosh through the rising water and into relatively dry corner – the focus being on the term relatively.

Qui-Gon places a hand on a door, and straightens in surprise when it slides open without resistance. "Security is down," he comments. "Did agent Hika mention anything to do with this?"

"No." Dooku answers, turning towards a far corridor. "But this is a fortunate turn of events. We cannot waste this opportunity to find our padawans. May the Force be with you, Qui-Gon." With that, the soaked, black-cloaked Shadow ducks back into the artificial rain.

Qui-Gon breathes a silent word of thanks to whomever or whatever has come to their aid, and begins to wade in the other direction.

Towards Obi-Wan.

(:~:)

Ezhno is having the time of his life.

When Hika sent him the message to begin, he had already started preliminary work in breaking down the academy's firewalls. Approximately five minutes afterwards, he has successfully spliced the laboratory's system to mirror that of the academy. Whatever havoc he wreaks in the school will therefore be replicated in the labs.

And wreaking havoc is his speciality.

Ezhno whoops as he cavorts down the hallway, trailing smoke from two handfuls of lighted splints, sending the fire alarms blaring as the academy's state-of-the-art sensory systems recognises the rise in temperature, converts the energy into an electrical signal, sends the signal in a feedback loop to the central relay hub of the school network, and races to activate the pressurised flamm retardant…only to be diverted through a new path to a whole new system further underground, dumping several tonnes of water and flamm retardant onto the heads of assassin droids and Jedi alike.

Not that Ezhno is aware of the final result of his sabotage; but as he uses one of the emergency fire-vibro-axes to enthusiastically smash open the school's wiring room, he muses that this might lead to his permanent expulsion.

And he decides he does not care, because his is all for his best friend.

The wires in the boxes are a mess of colour, but Ezhno easily differentiates which ones are key relays for the academy's security system, and he sets about rewiring these with glee. He stops when the wires hold a passable resemblance to the traditional Togrutan rugs his aunts used to weave every festival on Shili.

The school's security system, and the laboratory's with it, goes kaput.

As he turns tail to flee the two security guards, three weekend staff, and one teacher hot in pursuit, Ezhno reflects that there is something quite fitting about this.

This is the Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children.

Although Ezhno could not see so before, he is certainly a gifted child; and he has just given the academy a parting gift of his own.

(:~:)

Inching along yet another empty corridor, a very soaked Obi-Wan leans against a door for support – not realising it is unlocked like all the other doors, thanks to Ezhno – and crashes through it, slamming his face into the floor. Groaning, he raises his head. A glance reveals a holographic console, a datachip still slotted into its reader, and its user nowhere to be found.

Tiredness threatens to overwhelm him, but he clambers up into the chair and taps a few commands with a shaking hand. Several files flash before his eyes; most, for some reason, are labeled Offworld Mining Corp.

He has no time for this.

DOWNLOAD ALL FILES? Y/N

Obi-Wan taps – well, more like punches – Y, and removes the chip once the information is transferred. Having nowhere to place it, he slips it in his mouth – shuddering with revulsion as he does so – and swallows it. If his tech class at the Temple is accurate, high-end chips like this one should be acid-resistant.

Somewhere in the haze of exhaustion, he spares a groan at what Avarin's reaction would be to such a piece of news.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon's boots skid against the glistening floors as he rounds the last corner before Obi-Wan's cell. What he sees has him sliding to an hurried halt.

The heavy durasteel door lies awkwardly across the entire width of the corridor. Ducking inside the darkened room, Qui-Gon takes in the scarlet-painted table and floors with marble-hard eyes. The air is rank with the smell of iron. A brush of fingertips across the rust-stained metal surface causes him to flinch violently at the images scattered across his helpless sight. He is no Quinlan Vos, to be sure; but the bond between master and padawan is enough that Obi-Wan's agony echoes here, like a negative after-image printed on the back of Qui-Gon's eyelids.

Here…his little one had lain here...and he had burned with the Force…

Were those restraints melted?

His heart now hammering in his throat, Qui-Gon steps out into the damp corridor and crouches by the fallen door. A careful hand fingers the hydraulic joints, and his eyes widen with surprise to find them sheared off in a single precise slice.

Obi-Wan had broken himself out…and with power unseen in ones so young, save for those who are dark.

And somewhere in the Force-echoes of the room behind him, Qui-Gon had sensed a moment there when all light seemed to have gone out…

Qui-Gon's gaze catches on the small red footprints leading down the corridor. The water had nearly erased the blood; but it is enough for the tall Jedi to see the uneven gait of the one who created them. Unbidden, a whisper slips out of his lips, a plea to the Force. "Padawan-mine…"

Please. Do not follow Xanatos's path.

(:~:)

Jedi Master Tamesis Dooku has never been broken.

In over fifty years of loyal service to the Jedi Order, he has seen friends Fall, seen war and death and unimaginable horrors. He has lost what should have been a grandson to the darkness, and watched his eldest child crumble over it.

But in the moment he lays eyes on the curled form of his youngest apprentice, Dooku knows he is shattered, rent apart, dashed against the terrible shards of the Unifying Force.

The two guards who have somehow remained to watch over the Nautolan padawan are thrown mercilessly against the far wall. Dooku does not wonder what shadow encroaches on his mind as he allows them to crumple, broken, to the floor.

Huei.

Huei's heartbeat is shallow, but steady, as his master lifts him from the tank. There is minimal blood on the dark-blue skin when the sensors are methodically removed, when the gag is pulled from between still-white teeth. He murmurs in his pained slumber when Dooku wraps the young Jedi's nerveless form in his own sodden cloak.

But there is no joy in this.

No.

There is no relief, for Dooku can see, plain as moonrise on the fields of Shili, that Huei's eyes are not the clear slate-grey they should be; rather, they are milky-white, opalescent, streaked with deadened tissue.

They have taken his padawan's sight.

Huei Tori is blind.

Chapter Text

"Get out here, deaf boy!"

Thud. The dull impact of some heavy object or the other impacting two inches of solid durasteel causes the air to shudder in the almost-empty classroom beyond.

Lounging idly in the very comfortable chair behind the teacher's desk, Ezhno is unable to hear the muffled and very colourful curses hurled at him from behind the electronically locked and cabinet-barricaded door. He is, however, fully capable of reading the automatic transcription provided by his datapad, and snorting jovially at the sheer stupidity of yelling insults at someone, as they had so eloquently put, deaf.

So far there are two members of the academy's security team hammering at the door, plus a harried weekend-shift teacher who alternates between shrieking threats and shouting bribes.

"The principal will be so interested in speaking to you when we get our hands on your sorry rear, goldie…"

"Oi!" Ezhno yells in return, his gold-striped montrals swinging as he straightens in his chair. "Was that a derogatory comment directed t'wards me 'ead?" A faint smirk flickers across his features when he realises just how much he had channelled Obi-Wan's speech patterns in that comment. Derogatory, eh…

He does not deign to read the answering insult that flashes across the screen of his 'pad, choosing to prop his feet nonchalantly on the table edge instead. Nevertheless, he deep thrum that reverberates up his sternum belies the ferocity of the next assault on the door. Huh. Ezhno tucks his fingers behind his head and tilts the chair back, balancing it on two spindly metal legs. The empty classroom seems to stare accusingly back at him, row upon row of desks with chair neatly tucked underneath, save for the few he had haphazardly removed to reinforce the barricaded door. A giant interactive chart of the Galactic Republic covers the entirety of the wall opposite, the wire-threaded transparisteel rubbed to a shine by the dozens of hands that brush its surface each day.

The Inter-Systems Relations classroom.

Why Ezhno had chosen this particular chamber as his fortress, he does not know himself. Just two mornings ago, he had sat in this room beside Obi-Wan, enraptured, as Mister Jinnson wove tales of the stars beyond the walls of the academy. It had been Jinnson, Ezhno recalls, who had shoved his way through the swarm of amassing students to where Obi-Wan convulsed on the refectory floor. Ezhno had pleaded with the new teacher to save Obi-Wan, and was rewarded with a glance so sharp and so clear that for a moment Ezhno believed he had been run through by twin shafts of purest ice.

Jinnson's irises had burned with cold determination as he crouched by Obi-Wan, a cerulean fire that seemed almost…paternal, now that Ezhno muses over the memory. How could that be possible if teacher had only just met student?

And yet…Ezhno considers Obi-Wan his best friend, despite only knowing him for all of a week. A grin flickers across his white-marked features. Maybe it's just Obi-Wan.

Not that it matters, now – the acrid scent of scorched metal is suddenly heavy in his nose, and fat sparks begin to burst from the edges of the door. He cannot hear the high-pitched roar, but the sharp scent identifies the source well enough.

Acetylene torch.

Oh. Hadn't counted on that coming.

Tumbling off the desk, Ezhno edges backwards, away from the increasingly weak barricade. Further and further he shuffles, until his back comes into contact with the poster-covered wall opposite the door. Through an unexpected and rather terrifying influx of dread, he realises he is gripping his 'pad loosely between fingers now numb with adrenalin. He must have held on to it subconsciously – but what use is hacking if the last physical barrier between Ezhno and his pursuers is being literally hacked into pieces?

The hole in the door is widening; the sizzling vapour of burning durasteel wreathes the incomplete circle with flowering fireworks of white-bleached embers, like the penumbra of a star emerging from the shadow of an eclipse. The noxious gases seem to reach clawed hands into Ezhno's throat choke him.

His vision wavers, and this rips a scream he cannot hear from his lips, because…because something inside him screams I'm deaf I'm stinkin' deaf already what will I do if I go blind too, over and over until the words hammer against his throbbing eyes.

Repulsed, Ezhno leans his full weight against the wall behind him, struggling to remove himself from the stench and the airless vapours–

–and the wall falls away.

Ezhno tumbles backwards, smacking his skull painfully on the wet floor of the laboratory corridor. In his haze of disorientation, he is only half aware of the toxic effluvia still pouring out of the doorway to the classroom, but one well-aimed kick is enough to push the hidden door to.

When his rasping coughs finally cease, he runs one bruised hand over grimy montrals and blinks streaming eyes at the closed entrance by which he entered the lab. There is no way to lock it – his earlier hacking had left the entire system dead – but the door had been so cleverly concealed in the wall that Ezhno had needed to fall through it before realising it existed. A small, tired smile flickers across his face as he imagines his hunters spilling into the International Relations classroom, only to find it empty.

All the same – better not to tempt fate. Rising on weary feet, Ezhno turns and slips deeper into the labyrinthine passages.

Hey, maybe I'll run into Obi-Wan.

Visibility in the corridors lasts a few meters, at most; the clouds of water vapour evaporating off the wet floor fill the air with clouds of steam. A line of sweat runs down Ezhno's collar, a slight whisper of displaced air against his skin – and a short figure hobbles out of the fog.

"Obi-Wan!" Ezhno reaches toward the shadow, only to recoil in horror at the tongueless maw that leers at him from between layers of oiled, sodden hair.

The hunch-backed, slavering thing that might once have been human raises a surprisingly steady claw of a hand and levels a blaster at Ezhno's bewildered golden eyes. And even as he stares, the barrel rises up, up, and presses itself with a feather-light touch to the ochre-brown skin of his forehead.

As Ezhno stares across the black-armoured barrel, down the white-coated limb that supports it, and up to Vassar's rotten-fruit smile, he realises two things: One, that perhaps he is not as fearless as he had thought himself to be – and two, this creature that stands before him does not have any particular reason to kill him. It is for precisely this reason that Vassar will pull the trigger – he has no particular reason not to kill Ezhno, either. Death is to this twisted human what a clothes are to a sentient; slide on, slip off, a thing of ease and disinterest.

Vassar's name is not known to Ezhno, but Vassar will end him simply because he can.

That diseased grin widens as the finger tightens on the trigger–

–and something intangible tears the blaster into suddenly turbulent air, sending the shot careening over Ezhno's shoulder in a searing bolt of fury.

Vassar lets out a voiceless, inhuman shriek as he grasps at his dislocated fingers, falling onto his knees in the ankle-deep water.

Ezhno falls backwards, nerves burning with a potent mixture of shock and relief. Tears smart against his eyelids as he blinks away the smoke of the blaster shot to meet his friend's exhausted gaze, mere feet away. One of Obi-Wan's hands is still raised, as if cupping the currents of the air itself – and the other dangles uselessly by his side, dripping crimson onto the sopping tiles by his bare feet.

Vassar lets out an inhuman shriek of rage and palms a scalpel out of his coat, his good hand blurring as it flicks the blade towards the two boys curled against the slick ground.

Ezhno will never be quite able to describe what happens next.

It is as though he sucked in a gasp of air, and it the space of that breath, Obi-Wan's outline had blurred and rematerialized in front of Ezhno, raising a hand in a motion far too fluid for the battered state of the arm it is attached to. A concussive gust of air thuds against Ezhno's montrals – later, he would wonder if that is what hearing is like – and the scalpel reverses its motion in a terrible pinwheel of sharp metal, scything back towards its owner to–

Ezhno tampers down a shudder of revulsion and turns his gaze violently away. Anything to avoid the sight of that sightless, empty eye impaled upon the gleam of its own lust for murder.

The ground vibrates beneath Ezhno's fingers as Obi-Wan collapses limply beside him, a strange stone flute tumbling out of his fingers. Jarred out of his daze, the Togruta grabs his friend by the shoulders, both to get a good look at him and to stop his body from folding bonelessly to the floor like his lower half.

"Oi. Oi, lil' Obi. You all 'ere, mate?"

Obi-Wan does not seem to hear. His eyes have darkened to the murky blue of a sky swelling with storm clouds. He stares past Ezhno at the remains of Jenna Zan Arbor's assistant, with a gaze as tainted as the meandering swirls of red now blossoming like blood lilies in water by the still, lifeless form.

Ezhno glances away from the other boy's too-pale face for a moment, and nearly retches as he gets a good look at the state of Obi-Wan's torso. The mess of his arm aside, there is not one square inch of sweating skin not bruised, cut, or abused in some other manner. Fearing he causes Obi-Wan pain, Ezhno loosens the death-grip he has on his friend's shoulders, only to yelp and scrabble for him again when said friend lists dangerously to the right.

A large hand falls on Ezhno's shoulder from behind, and he flinches, expecting another attacker.

But the hand pushes him aside as gently and urgently as though he were a small animal in the path of a predator, and Ezhno can only gape in surprise as Obi-Wan is enveloped in a swirl of russet cloth and cream sleeves.

As Qui-Gon's heavy cloak splashes into the water by his knees, ripples cascade from its edge, breaking up the watercoloured reflection of a tongueless mouth opened wide in an eternal echo of its last scream, reverberating though the scalpel stuck in the sightless eye above it, and shattering with the rippling waves.

(:~:)

The moment Qui-Gon Jinn saw his padawan would forever be seared into the recesses of his mind. Restraint had flown into the ether; relief thawed the ice in his veins, only to cascade in a torrent of concern when his hurried pace brings him close enough to note his padawan's physical condition. He sweeps past the gruesome corpse with nary a second glance – only pausing to deem the Togrutan boy as an ally, not a threat – and then Qui-Gon is clutching a frighteningly unresponsive Obi-Wan in an embrace that belies his worry with its length.

It takes a long, long minute for Qui-Gon to realise his apprentice is not returning his embrace. In fact, his force-presence is barely detectable at all; it is as if Obi-Wan is not fully there. The Jedi master pauses for the merest of instants, glancing between the body behind him and Obi-Wan, and closes his eyes in pained acceptance when the Force provides an answer to his question.

Ah.

"Padawan?" He holds Obi-Wan upright, glancing over his litany of injuries with the efficiency of one far too used to playing field medic. When Obi-Wan's dull gaze remains fixed on the terrible scene behind his master, Qui-Gon subtly shifts so his wide shoulders remove Vassar's corpse from his padawan's line of sight.

Silence. Qui-Gon's fingers tighten minutely on Obi-Wan's shoulders, in preparation for whatever is to come.

Then a tiny light seems to dance in the depths of Obi-Wan's overcast eyes, like the spark from a flint flickering across a dying fire. He blinks once, twice, and slowly meets his master's gaze, as though the simple raising of his head is a movement that pains him.

What resides in those once-young irises strikes fear into Qui-Gon's soul.

But it does not matter. There, amongst the horrors that shiver in Obi-Wan's gaze, is an almost hidden recognition. Even as Qui-Gon watches, the corner of Obi-Wan's slack mouth twitches upwards in a pathetic, exhausted attempt at his usual knowing smirk.

"Obi-Wan." The name is barely audible; it is more an exhalation of relief than anything else. Moving as little as possible so as not to frighten him, Qui-Gon folds himself around his padawan like a paternal hawk-bat tending its injured young; the wide sleeves of his waterlogged cloak from protective wings, sheltering Obi-Wan from the cutting winds of the world. After a moment, Obi-Wan's good arm inches around his master's solid form, and he buries himself in the warmth and familiarity of home.

Ezhno observes all this with disbelieving brown eyes as large as two small moons.

The younger Jedi's increasingly violent shudders have not escaped Qui-Gon's notice. Frowning, he shrugs off his cloak and wraps it around his equally sodden charge. Two worn fingers rise to the pale temple and send a gentle tendril of the Force into Obi-Wan's ravaged mind, seeking to nurture, to repair–

Obi-Wan flinches away from the touch, shoving his master out of his mind so vehemently that for a span of seconds, Qui-Gon can only reel behind the hastily wrought shields of his own mindscape, a pained ache blossoming behind his eyes.

Why in the Force–

Bare feet squeak against the floor as Obi-Wan rips himself out of his Master's loosened embrace and shifts quickly, pressing his forehead to the ground in a full kowtow. Regret emanates from his Force-presence in a comet-tail of sparking fire.

Qui-Gon snaps out of his daze and lunges for his padawan, preventing Obi-Wan's bow from turning into an undignified faceplant as his ruined muscles give out.

"It is well, Padawan-mine," he murmurs, as he lifts Obi-Wan onto his own broad back, arranging the nerveless limbs carefully. "It is all well. You have performed admirably – do not fret over such trivialties as this. We will speak of what occurred when we return to the temple. Rest in the Force at present, little one."

Abruptly, regret morphs into shame, cascading from the faint Force-signature in waves that crash against Qui-Gon's shields. Obi-Wan's breath hitches against his master's neck, a hiccup that might have been a sob, but with no tears to accompany it. Qui-Gon narrows his eyes. There is something about that phrase, little one, that triggers an unwanted recollection in his apprentice, something hidden, dark–

It cannot be.

An ominous throb in the Force, like a past memory twisted into a nightmare, poisoning the very air they breathe. Qui-Gon may not be as attuned to the Unifying Force as his apprentice is, but he quite understands when the Force screams move.

"Get the flute," he barks at a startled Ezhno, who complies without question. Steadying Obi-Wan's weight on his back, Qui-Gon heads off down the hallway at a brisk clip, snapping a sharp command for the still-bewildered Togruta boy to follow.

With each hasty step, the Force harries them on, humming a foreshadowing requiem for the moments ahead.

(:~:)

Huei Tori awakes to find his nightmares have transcended his imaginings and utterly overwhelmed him.

He wakes, and yet does not. His eyelids flutter sluggishly with each shallow breath, the weak, unsung rhythm of an unfamiliar sea, as though the moon itself had been eaten by a Shadow and left the sea without tide, without a light on the rippling waters. His Master is close by; Huei becomes aware of an arm under his knees and another around his shoulders, cradling him step by step as though he were a corpse, a dead thing–

Wait.

His eyes are open.

His eyes are open, but there is no light.

Dreading the answer he might receive, Huei taps into the trickling currents of the Force.

No.

A scream is rent from his lips, and he hurls the Force from his mind, only to find he cannot escape it, cannot escape this terrible truth, for the Force runs in his veins and sings in every cell of his battered, weakened body, gently rocking him, murmuring sorrowfully that he is blind–

He is blind.

The hands supporting Huei's weight loosen as he thrashes in place, and he collides harshly with the ground, believing for the briefest of instants that the starburst of colour across his lost vision is a return to sight – only for the iridescent blossoms to wither into the burgundy of deep-seated pain, burned by the acid tears that spill from under his eyelids.

A rustle of heavy cloth as someone crouches by his side. Huei flinches away from the touch to his shoulder.

"You will calm yourself, Padawan." Dooku's command seems somehow distant, but his tone brooks no argument. "You are a Jedi. Act as such."

The cold practicality of his master's words add a new sting to his myriad of injuries, one that makes the muscle over his heart throb with hurt. Huei wavers again, drifting in and out of consciousness as Dooku lifts him into his arms again and continues on his way, hastening down hallways walled with barriers that blind him to the Force almost as much as his ruined eyes blind him to sight.

There is a trace of fear in Dooku's Force-signature, and Huei scrabbles for the mystery, seeking to centre himself on anything but the horrible, anchorless blackness that pervades his vision. In the end, the focuses on the clack-clack of his master's boot-heels on the ground, turning the monotonous rhythm into a kata, a measured dance of heartbeats, until his pulse slows and he finds he can breathe again.

At this, Dooku's presence seems to unwind slightly in the Force, a minute sigh spilling into the air. But when Huei reaches for their bond, Dooku seems to withdraw into himself, spinning a web of grey silk between their two minds. Huei does not have the energy to comment on it.

Then, between one pace and the next, they pass some invisible barrier, and the Force cascades over them in all its glorious firelight, breathing new life into the sputtering candle-flame that flickers in the badlands of Huei's mind.

"Master?" he croaks, shocked at the rustling cadence of his own voice.

Dooku's reply is emotionless, unreadable. "We are no longer in the place of your incarceration."

"Oh." Huei knows he should not feel such shattering relief at this; that it is unbecoming of a Jedi padawan, a sentinel, to hate a place as he does that expanse behind him, to abhor how the Force was stifled there, to shudder at every gruesome smell that reaches his head-tails – and yet the tears run salty down his cheeks, uncontrolled.

The only acknowledgement Dooku provides is a tightening of his grasp.

An indeterminable time later, the wet clack-clack of Dooku's steps turns to hollow echoes of boots against metal, and Huei finds himself set down against the rough durasteel of an entry ramp. The insignia of the Jedi Order is sharp under his fingertips, engraved into the centre of the slanted surface.

Kit Fisto's hiss of shock is a palpable spike in the Force, a murmur of colour in an otherwise dark expanse. The older Nautolan's fingers are gentle as they tilt his chin upwards, exposing the milky-white of his eyes to the moonlight Huei cannot see.

"Master Dooku," Kit manages, after a long moment of silence. "Is his sight…?"

"Yes."

The utter finality of that statement leaves Huei foundering in sudden nausea. Kit's steadying hand on his back does little to aid him – the Knight does not even begin to understand what Huei is drowning in.

He feels Kit shift as Dooku's signature coalesces into the frozen waste of a neutron star, packed so tightly that it leaves no room for light or dark, an impossibly heavy weight held in place by sheer will. The smart boot-steps start up again, and echo as they move further and further from Huei.

Though he knows he cannot reach his master, Huei flings out a hand, reaching through the shadows towards Dooku's fading Force-presence. "Master."

The footsteps halt.

On the threshold of unconsciousness, Huei swallows and whispers into the coiling dark, "Why are you leaving, Master?"

The answer is long in coming; the intensity with which Dooku is shielding nearly causes Huei to think he has disappeared into the void.

And then: "To do what needs be done."

There is no emotion in the sentinel's words. But there is no peace, either.

Peace is a lie. There is only…

Huei Tori succumbs to his exhaustion with the click-click of his master's boots fading into the distance; but the sound reverberates in the Unifying Force like the swelling beat of a war drum.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon's back is screaming at him by the time their transport comes into view, on the edges of a seedy spaceport. He has long since nudged Obi-Wan into a shallow healing trance, but this simply changes his padawan into a dead weight. The soft, steady breaths that brush the back of Qui-Gon's head, however, make it all worthwhile; he is confident that Obi-Wan will heal physically. His mind, he muses tiredly, is a different matter entirely.

Qui-Gon steals a glance at his lanky Togruta companion, to find that he is being thoroughly scrutinised in return. Half turning so his face is in full view, he asks conversationally, "Ezhno, was it not?"

Ezhno's spine straightens sharply enough to rival a military cadet's speed. His reply, though, is nowhere near as sharp. "Oh! Yeah, Mister Jinnson…sir…Master Jedi...yer lordship...uh…" He subsides in mortification, the golden stripes of his montrals darkening to honey-brown.

This, at least, has Qui-Gon releasing a small snort of laughter. It is the first cause he has to laugh today, and he is grateful for it. "My name, my young friend," he chuckles jovially, "is Qui-Gon Jinn. I am no lord, and you need not call me sir. 'Master Jinn' will do."

"Gotcha. Master Jinn," Ezhno returns, flicking a worried glance at Obi-Wan's inert form. "Um…if you don't mind me askin' a question, mind…"

"Yes?" Qui-Gon's neck is starting to ache from his head craning over his shoulder so that Ezhno can lip-read, but he weathers the discomfort, knowing he should offer the Togruta boy the same courtesy he offers his apprentice.

"Um…I dunno how ter put this, see…" Ezhno seems uncharacteristically embarrassed, for one so brash in class. Qui-Gon's sole chance to observe him has made his usual personality quite clear. "Uh…" Seeing the intimidating – or so he thinks – Jedi raise an eyebrow, Ezhno blurts, "Is Obi-Wan your son?"

Of all the possible questions, Qui-Gon had not expected that.

Ezhno takes the Jedi master's long silence as confirmation, and steamrolls on in his signature fashion. "You see," he says quickly, "I've only known 'im for a few days, but Obi's my friend. He seemed sorta of down, like, in those coupla days 'fore you came. And then you turn up and 'e just lights up like a whaddaya-call-'em shining-stick-thingie glowrods."

If Qui-Gon was about to speak, this astonishing declaration, put so aptly in a myriad of accents, shuts him up. Very efficiently so.

"Yeah…" Ezhno absently scratches a scuff mark on his montral. "So…I think lil' Obi's very lucky ter have a dad like you…" – Qui-Gon opens his mouth at the nickname, but Ezhno is occupied with self-conciously examining Obi-Wan's flute – "…because my dad never 'cepted me for what I am, like. Deaf an' all," he finishes, quite unaware of the effect of his words on his audience.

Qui-Gon finds himself most effectively dumbstruck.

Ezhno pauses in his soliloquy and looks up, honesty all over his white-marked face, and Qui-Gon can only murmur, "Obi-Wan is my apprentice."

But Ezhno can lip read, so Qui-Gon might as well have shouted it.

"Oh." Ezhno tilts his head. "But he's like your only 'prentice, righ'?" he presses, brown eyes curious.

A pause. "…For the present, yes. Our Order forbids the taking of more than one padawan at a time."

"So he isyer son, then." Ezhno is blunt as ever; his dazzling smile does nothing to minimise the effect. "Pa-da-wan," he mutters to himself, trying out the syllables.

"We've almost reached our transport," Qui-Gon says shortly, before turning back towards the ship, wishing he could rub the crick in his neck.

A final query. "Um…is lil' Obi going to be 'kay? I mean, he's awful still."

Qui-Gon does not answer immediately. His boots thump up the ramp, and the next moment he is in the medbay, lowering Obi-Wan onto the single empty cot. Huei Tori lies supine on the other pallet, the only sign of life in him the subtle rising and falling of his chest, and the steady beeping of the monitors.

"Master Jinn." Kit Fisto appears in the doorway to the cockpit. He glances questioningly at Ezhno, but seems to tamper down on his curiosity and starts forward to help with Obi-Wan instead.

"How severe is padawan Tori's condition?" Qui-Gon asks as he deftly connects Obi-Wan to the monitoring equipment.

Kit's webbed hand pauses in the act of pulling a blanket out of a compartment. Qui-Gon halts in his ministrations to Obi-Wan, picking up on the distress in the other Jedi's Force-signature.

"…Master Dooku said he has lost his sight. Permanently," Kit says quietly.

Sorrow is the first emotion Qui-Gon encounters; it honours the once-vibrant bond he had with his former master. The second, absurdly, is relief – relief that Obi-Wan has not suffered Huei's fate.

He stops, ashamed, when he realises his train of thought.

"…and where is Master Dooku now?" he directs at the Nautolan knight. Anything to tear himself away from the selfishness of his thoughts.

Kit's smooth green forehead wrinkles into emerald frown-lines. "He went back the way he came. I assumed he was searching for you; I was just about to ask you the same question."

Qui-Gon's sodden tunics fling water into the air as he pivots in place; the droplets fall in silvered arcs, like raindrops frozen into sleet by an icy wind of premonition.

"Did he say anything before he left?"

The urgency in Qui-Gon's voice causes Kit to start; he is slow in replying. "He said he would 'do what must be done'."

Alarm floods the Force as Qui-Gon's gaze turns from Huei's ravaged eyes back towards the smoke still rising from the distant building which houses the laboratories he had only just carried his padawan from.

"Zan Arbor," he hisses under his breath. "Master…"

The Force pulses in terrible agreement.

Ezhno nearly drops Obi-Wan's flute when Qui-Gon drops to one knee beside him, reaching out to grasp his shoulders. Qui-Gon speaks with such hurried speed that the Togrutan boy can scarcely make out the words.

"Ezhno, I need you to stay with Obi-Wan. I do not want him waking from his healing trance to find he is alone." A small smile. Qui-Gon's blue eyes twinkle with the shadow of emotion. "I am grateful to you for caring for him. Rest assured, he will recover."

Qui-Gon barely waits for Ezhno's nod of acknowledgement before he rises in a sweep of tunics, gently edges his wet cloak out from around Obi-Wan, replaces it with a blanket Kit hands to him, grabs the Nautolan Jedi by the arm, and hauls him out onto the ramp.

"Kit, I need you to put a transmission through to the Temple," Qui-Gon growls, looking every bit as unsettled, and deadly serious, as he truly is. The heavy weight of his cloak fans out around him in a circle of russet cloth as he throws it about his shoulders. "Contact Master Yoda, and Master Yoda only. Inform him of the padawans' condition…and tell him what Dooku said, verbatim. In that order, understand?"

Kit nods assent, a trace of fear dawning on his features as he considers the implications of Qui-Gon's words. "Master Jinn!" he calls after the already dwindling shadow that is the Jedi master. "What are you going to do?"

Qui-Gon's desperate pace does not falter. "I only hope I can stop him from doing something we all will regret." Nobody else hears his words; they are caught by the wind of his passage and tossed into the waning moon to be swallowed whole by its eclipse.

And Qui-Gon bounds on, through the silent streets, like a wolf in the darkening starlight of Ventrux, each step bringing him closer to the convergence of a destiny that is not his own.

(:~:)

It is the deepest hours of the night on Ventrux, and the moon hides its face in Night's velvet cloak, frightened of the coming of something deeper, darker than Night herself. The stars tremble in fear, and whisper dark, dark, the Dark is coming, hide, hide from the Shadow, a whisper carried in the Force as a dischordant sawing of bows on the violin-strings of the galaxy, warp and weft fraying, fraying…

A Jedi – or something like one, but not – closes in on his prey, his tread that of hunter so perfect that the burning in his heart is simply a forge for his power.

The doors of Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children are blasted into scrap.

And the hunter enters the den of its prey.

Chapter Text

The scientist called Jenna Zan Arbor is not some complex mystery in need of solving. She is a singularly-willed woman who began her adult life as a leading pioneer in multi-species biotechnology, saving whole planets and species alike; and who, in the twilight years of her youth, discovered a burning desire to understand the use of the Force, and in the process of her preliminary experiments quite effectively murdered her own son.

…There is a small gravestone on her estate in Ventrux, etched with the name Ren Zan Arbor.

Now, even as she is young no more, she continues her work, though she no longer treats each success as a victory; there is only the never-ending thirst for answers. And so Zan Arbor is indeed not some complex mystery; her life is a series of causes and outcomes, exactly like the experiments she conducts daily. She is what she has made of herself.

This, of course, renders her crimes all the more heinous.

(:~:)

Dooku's world has dissolved into fire.

It has happened before; agony and sorrow closely follow the footsteps of every Jedi Shadow. But this is different, because the source of the flames is from within. There had always been resentment there; but now it has grown and twisted into a worm of unimaginable power that commands his limbs and activates the 'saber in his hand with a twitch of a finger that seems not his own.

The yellow-gold glow of Dooku's lightsaber throws scattered shadows on the darkened corridor walls. The gold of a sentinel's blade is a symbol of how the pure light of the Force drives out the encroaching dark; but Dooku's 'saber only seems to magnify the grey border of luminance and shadow. The tongue of starfire no longer glows with undiluted light. Rather, the edged plasma seems sullied, like the grimy fluorescent striplights of the Coruscanti underworld.

The last door crashes open with enough force to rip reinforced durasteel from wall.

And there the prey stands, stricken by the harsh limelight of tainted gold fire, pinned in place by a gaze without warmth, without life.

Faced with the horrible wrath of a Jedi that cares not for restraint, mercy, or pain, Zan Arbor's breath catches. She knows in this one terrible moment that this, too, is something she helped to create; but it is not a victory.

No.

A dark claw closes around her throat, sucking the very life out of her limp form, suspending her on a weightless plane of agony.

"Who…?" she mouths, past the suffocating grip.

The Jedi – or not Jedi – speaks, each word a hammer-blow that leaves Zan Arbor gasping for toxic air. "You took the light from my apprentice. I am here to do the same to you." The voice brings to mind images of silk polishing ice, cool and smooth and utterly deadly.

Hung upon the gallows of living hell, Zan Arbor can only stare, eyes bulging with a newfound feeling of pure fear, as that same cold voice says plainly, "You will be blind."

The formless claws on her throat tighten, and a blazing spear of vengeful fire lances for her eyes.

A voice. "Master!"

And the heat scorches Zan Arbor's eyelids.

(:~:)

The Force had screamed in jarring half-harmony with Qui-Gon's fleeting steps as he swept through the corridors, following a path in the Force as obvious as a trail of rotting corpses. Each pace brings him closer to that awful miasma, the chasm that warps the waters of the Force into a hungered maelstrom that threatens to swallow him as well. The last fragments of the old bond between Qui-Gon and Dooku wither and snap, crushed by the sheer weight of seething shadow.

A word claws itself up through the bile in Qui-Gon's throat.

"Master!"

The word cascades down upon Dooku like a sudden downpour, bringing with it and unbidden memory of a brown-haired, cerulean-eyed young padawan. But Dooku does not sense the flickering presence of a half-trained Jedi; instead, the Force-signature behind him is ringed with the blazing penumbra of a master of the Living Force.

The flames that encroach the periphery of his world flicker even as a new, searing line of emerald fire halts at his back.

"Master." Qui-Gon's voice has the barking rasp of a mouth completely dry. "Give your 'saber to me. Please."

Dooku does not loosen his Force-grip around Zan Arbor's throat, nor does he turn to face his former apprentice. "I do not intend to kill her," he murmurs. "I only wish for justice."

"This is not justice. This is revenge."

The Sentinel watches the tip of his lightsaber hover over Zan Arbor's glazed eyes. "I am a shadow cast by the Light," Dooku declares bluntly. "I do what needs be done."

"Anger is only a temporary power," Qui-Gon murmurs. "I remember well; it is what you taught me." His words fall quietly. "I beg you, Master, do not take this path." Then, even softer: "Do not commit the same mistake Xanatos did."

Do not do what he did, and so deprive me of a mentor as well as a son.

Tamesis Dooku takes a breath; and in those heartbeats, the Force shudders. He turns to look over his shoulder, and is momentarily surprised that the Jedi standing behind him does not have a long padawan braid down to his waist, or earth-brown hair bound back in a nerf-tail.

The Jedi Guardian's blue eyes meet the black of the Jedi Sentinel's, separated by a gulf as wide as heaven and hell.

But they both hold fear.

"Master," Qui-Gon whispers. The emerald length of his 'saber wavers slightly with the tremble of the hand that grasps it.

The warp and weft of the Unifying Force reverberates with the swaying shatterpoint of crystalline strings. It would only need a twitch of Dooku's wrist to break…

Hiss-snap.

The Sentinel's adamantine shields do not give, but his long yellow-gold blade retracts into its hilt. Zan Arbor's eyes roll back into her head as she crumples to the ground, senseless. Qui-Gon wordlessly steps forward and presses two fingers to the side of her neck; Dooku watches impassively.

"Her pulse is steady, but weak," Qui-Gon states, not quite meeting the other Jedi's gaze as he deactivates his 'saber in turn. "…You very nearly killed her," he observes detachedly.

Dooku's voice is a low rumble, like approaching thunder. "As I said, that was not my intent."

"And was your intent to blind her any better?" Qui-Gon chuckles mirthlessly. Something in his voice must have caught Dooku's attention; Qui-Gon senses the sentinel's gaze fall dagger-sharp onto the back of his head. "Forgive me. I forget myself," Qui-Gon murmurs, reaching up to rub at his tired eyes.

The Force stretches like a bulging bolus of liquid, teeming with questions and words that cannot be voiced. In the end, Qui-Gon straightens from his crouch, turns toward Dooku, and says simply, "I had thought you a better man, my former master."

"Someday, my padawan," Dooku replies emotionlessly – Qui-Gon notices the distinct lack of former – "You will learn to do what is necessary."

Qui-Gon's blue eyes harden to ice. "Then I hope to the Force that day will never come."

Dooku returns Qui-Gon's glacial stare with a veiled gaze that does not quite cover his somewhat unsettled air.

They are halfway to the transport, the comatose form of Zan Arbor suspended in the Force behind them, when Dooku shatters the silence. "Would you have done the deed?"

"What deed would you be referring to?" Qui-Gon inquires, his gaze still fixed pointedly to a point somewhere ahead.

"If I had persisted in taking the woman's sight, would you have…stopped…me?" There is a slight note of something in Dooku's tone. Qui-Gon does not deign to analyse it.

The response is long in coming. But at last, a sigh slips out of the younger Jedi's lips. "I could not stop Xanatos," he whispers wearily. "I could not bear to…end…him."

"…Why would that be relevant?"

Qui-Gon's steps slow, then halt. Dooku pauses and half-turns to scrutinise his former apprentice. The Sentinel's long shadow just brushes the other Jedi's boots. For a moment, Qui-Gon's lips twitch in the imitation of a smile; the hollow smile of one who realises at last that the person he faces does not comprehend him at all.

A deep, centering breath.

"Of course it is relevant," Qui-Gon whispers, looking past Dooku's silhouette to the first glimmer of dawn. "Well, it was. It seems it no longer is, now." His usual propensity for complex wording seems to have left him.

And as Dooku watches his erstwhile protégé step past him toward the stirring embers of the sun's rising, he feels a pang for something he does not, and never truly will, understand.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan drifts on a timeless plane of endless dream, curled snugly in a coracle of whimsical thought. The Force laps in gentle waves on the edges of his little boat, and he cares not where its currents carry him, for each breath is the slow swelling and receding of the tide. He could have wandered for eternity, but soon enough – or a long time after, for it is hard to tell in this place – the coracle's smooth hull bumps against a bank. Obi-Wan frowns in his doze as the jarring motion makes him aware of a presence close by; another craft, not a small as his coracle but somehow made of living wood, with a hearth-fire blazing at its heart, spreading warmth to Obi-Wan's little boat, suffusing his limbs. The warmth grows stronger, which turns to scorching heat and pain–

The Force slips out of his grip, and of a sudden, he is not curled in a coracle, but lying on a cocoon of blankets that is still far too cold when compared to the dull fire in his bones. The light burns when he forces his heavy eyelids to rise. Panic claws its way up his throat, only to halt at the barrier to his lips.

The glaring light extinguishes abruptly. A familiar shape moves on the edges of his blurred sight, and a calloused palm grasps his shoulder and gently eases him back onto the pallet even as he becomes aware of the stiffness of his muscles.

"Must you insist on pulling your bandages, my very young padawan?" a softly amused voice intones.

Obi-Wan scrabbles at his cluttered thoughts: that voice has a name, a title, an honorific, and a home…

Master Qui-Gon.

Obi-Wan goes limp with relief.

"Good." Qui-Gon says dryly. "It would do you well to remain thus." Although he cannot see it, Obi-Wan can hear the smile in his master's words.

"I'm going to adjust the light level. Stop me if it pains you." The darkness recedes, leaving a comfortably dim glow. In the gentle yellow light, Qui-Gon's weathered face seems less severe, if a trifle wearier, than usual. Obi-Wan's gaze searches beyond the older Jedi's chair and falls on the slumbering form of Ezhno, curled up in another chair with Qui-Gon's cloak tucked around him. The hyperdrive's low thrum echoes in the walls; in the fuzziness of his mind Obi-Wan realises they must be halfway to Coruscant by now.

"You have a very loyal friend," Qui-Gon says, unexpectedly. "I believe I quite like him."

Obi-Wan smiles weakly. Something edges at his memory; something he should be ashamed of… Confused, he glances over at Ezhno again, only for his eyes – now better adapted to the darkness – to move to the very edge of the lamplight and glance upon another bundle of blankets at the far side of the medbay; a Nautolan boy with bandaged eyes…

Qui-Gon shifts so his broad form removes Huei from Obi-Wan's line of sight. "Not now," he says firmly, in answer to the vaguely querying notion that pulses mutedly in their bond.

Apparently Obi-Wan is sufficiently exhausted, because he lets the matter drop and allows Qui-Gon to tuck the blankets more firmly around him instead. A frown downturns the corners of his lips when he realises how slowly the Jedi Master completes the task; as though each movement causes great weariness. A movement into the light reveals that Qui-Gon's pale blue eyes seem clouded with a great burden of rain, yet to fall.

The spike of alarm is more than sufficient to cause Qui-Gon's gaze to snap towards Obi-Wan. Something brushes by his sleeve, a whisper of wind, like the fluttering of a newborn moth. A glance down at his wrist reveals Obi-Wan's good hand fumbling for the corner of Qui-Gon's sleeve. A moment later, the sluggish fingers trap the triangle of rough fabric and latch on like some particularly stubborn Seafah shellfish.

An extremely weak Force probe prods at Qui-Gon's shields; the older Jedi heaves a minute sigh before cupping the probe as though it were a flickering firefly. He is about to speak when Obi-Wan's useless attempt at shielding finally collapses, leaving Qui-Gon fully aware of the outpouring of concern that suffuses Obi-Wan's Force-signature.

Oh, precious child.

"I hardly think it is my condition that warrants concern, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon answers, trying valiantly to stop the grin from pulling at his lips.

His charge's small mouth sets into a firm pout, and the firefly of a Force-probe slips out of Qui-Gon's grasp. The fingers curled around Qui-Gon's sleeve jerk stubbornly. Tug.

"There is nothing to worry about, pada–"

Tug.

"Truly–"

Tug.

Qui-Gon cannot help himself; a quiet laugh bubbles out of him, and some of the weight on his shoulders seems to lift. Shifting, he folds a hand over the smaller one that clutches his sleeve, gently detaching it and placing it back under the covers. Obi-Wan makes as if to protest, but his sleep-heavy eyes widen as Qui-Gon leans over and presses a kiss to his forehead.

"Thank you, little one," Qui-Gon murmurs. "If you must know, Zan Arbor is locked away in the brig. You shall have the rest of the truth – but for now, sleep." He infuses the word with a subtle Force-suggestion, and Obi-Wan slips away into dreams of his secret garden in the sun-soaked cloister of the Temple.

The last feeling Qui-Gon receives from his apprentice is a muted apology of sorts. The Jedi's leonine features crease in thought…perhaps he is not the only one with secrets to reveal when the time presents itself. His thoughts turn to other matters, though, when his fingers move from his apprentice's overly warm forehead to the matted, longer strip of hair that curls over one ear.

The tall Jedi rises and steps away from the cot for a moment, returning with a bowl of water and a strip of cloth. He takes longer than strictly necessary to clean the lock of hair, but Qui-Gon knows with utter certainty that he wishes to do this properly. When it is done, Qui-Gon reaches into his pocket for a few beads and coloured lengths of thread.

Master, Padawan, and the Force: their three paths wind into a single whole once more. The braid is not perfect, nor is their path; there are split ends and frayed edges, curves in the road, but these are problems that can be addressed at a later date. For now, master and padawan rest in the moment.

(:~:)

They dropped off Hika at a Republic Service Corps cruiser. She had remained in the cockpit with Kit Fisto throughout the hyperspace jump; the younger ones on the Jedi transport had not even realised she was on board.

"I'm glad this is over," Hika groaned to the Nautolan Jedi as they step down the ramp.

"Is the ExplorCorps too much for you?" Kit had inquired. He was the only one to see her off; Qui-Gon had not stirred from his chair beside Obi-Wan in four hours, and Dooku was ensconced in deep and troubled meditation.

"I miss the Temple," Hika replied, shrugging. "I always wanted to be a padawan; when that didn't work out, the ExplorCorps seemed like the next best choice. But I didn't know they would make me an agent."

Kit quirks his signature smile. "May the Force be with you."

Hika grinned in return. "May the Force be with you, Master Fisto. Oh, and make sure that boy – Ezhno – is well taken care of, would you?"

And then she had simply waved a hand in farewell, and disappeared into the bustling hangar.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon Jinn sits in the half-shadow of the medbay and watches the slow rise and fall of his padawan's bandage-covered chest. The open datapad that rests across his knees bathes his aquiline features in a green glow – not the natural emerald of his 'saber, but the unnatural neon of contrived light. The screen flickers, and a mask of shadow flits across his face, like a velvet mask slid on and off.

Mission Code: ZA-5212

Mission report: I, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, along with Master Tamesis Dooku, Knight Kit Fisto, and Padawans Obi-Wan Kenobi and Huei Tori – were sent to the planet Ventrux to investigate…

Qui-Gon's fingers slow. He finds he has no words to say. What could be said?

We allowed children to suffer unimaginable horrors so we might obtain evidence.

Delete.

Padawan Kenobi dispatched the attacker with a scalpel.

…Delete.

Padawan Tori was, unfortunately, permanently blinded.

Qui-Gon's finger hovers over the delete button.

Master Dooku hunted down the scientist in question and would have burned off her eyes and Force-choked her to an almost certain death were it not for my timely intervention.

The datapad clatters to the floor.

Qui-Gon hunches over and buries his tired, tired eyes into Obi-Wan's blankets. Unbidden, his fingers begin to stroke the crown of downy spikes. Qui-Gon Jinn feels anything but a Jedi Master as he whispers into the unending night of hyperspace: "I'm so sorry."

He does not know whether he apologises to himself, Obi-Wan, or the Force. Memory beckons, and remembrance brings to him Obi-Wan's sheet of crumpled flimsy, and written in ink on its pitted surface, a single sentence:

Do not mock those who Turn, but grieve for them and their loved ones.

And so, amid a surge of gratitude for his padawan, Qui-Gon grieves.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan wakes to find that he is drowning.

A mask of some sort slides off his face as he jerks awake, and thick, viscous liquid burrows into his open mouth, forcing its way down his throat to his involuntary gasp. Obi-Wan thrashes violently, but the slime seems to constrict around his limbs like cold glue, keeping him suspended there, blind, with no up, down, left, right, or centre. He gags on the medicinal tang even as his mind screams that he can't breathehe can'tbreathe he can't–

But…

It is with a jolt of surprise that Obi-Wan finds he doesn't need to;the sickly-sweet liquid somehow sates the thirst for oxygen in his lungs. Blue eyes open and close once in the thick darkness, and then calloused hands are grasping his bare shoulders and he seems to be almost rocketed up into blessed light and air.

Obi-Wan turns his head to the side and vomits up bacta as his goo-covered hands scrabble at the edge of the immersion tank, slipping on transparisteel. The Force tilts sickeningly on the plane of his mind, and he slides down the steepening slope, clawing at the precipice of unconsciousness–

A liquid rope of light whips down from the crack of luminance far above, bringing with it a sharp command as it arrests his fall. "Wake, Kenobi!"

The vaguely familiar voice rings like a thunderclap in his ears.

By the time Obi-Wan crawls his way back to full consciousness, his head is already cushioned on a pillow, and smooth sheets shift under his fingertips. A monitor of some sort bleeps mutedly behind him. Another slow blink or two, and the fuzzy shape hovering over him resolves into a Master healer's amused face.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Avarin chuckles. His ageless teal eyes crinkle at the corners. "I recall I wanted to say as to your wild akk of a master all those long months ago, when he was the one clinging stubbornly to slumber – but he is nowhere near as difficult a patient as you."

Obi-Wan has the audacity to crack as smile as he reaches up to rub at his sticky nose. He freezes, though, as he realises it he had used his right hand – the limb that Zan Arbor's droids had shattered. Avarin observes with a strangely disturbed silence as the newly awakened padawan experimentally flexes his forearm before raising it to the light of the overhead lamp.

The breath stutters in Obi-Wan's throat when the lamplight limns the long, ridged scar on the underside of his forearm in half-shadow, like a sunrise caught on the uneven peaks of a small mountain range. The puckered memory stretches from elbow to wrist, a long, sinuous wraith of phantom pain.

"Your first souvenir of battle." There is an edge of regret in Avarin's tone; a Jedi padawan's first mark is a rite of passage, but will not be the last. This scar will be the first of many to come, both mental and physical, each wound revealing new wisdom, like the cutting of a rough diamond to reveal the flawless facets of its true form.

Obi-Wan traces a finger over the rough line as he flexes his fingers. There seems to be no permanent effect on his arm's range of motion, so the ugly scar is simply that: ugly. Nothing more. He slides his arm back under the covers and releases a breath of acceptance and gratitude into the Force that he has no permanent injury, unlike…

Huei.

Seeing a question in his patient's eyes, Avarin is quick to respond. "You've been here no more than a day," he says kindly. "I'd wager your master is presently before the Council, as are Master Dooku and Kight Fisto." A frown flickers across his brow, though, when Obi-Wan shakes his head violently. "What…ah. Padawan Tori," he concludes succinctly.

Obi-Wan nods, a millstone of dread sinking in his stomach. This is the first time his mind is clear since Qui-Gon had found him; now, his master's earlier reluctance in explaining Huei's condition to him seems all too suspicious.

The silence is just a little to heavy to be natural.

Finally: "Master Che is tending to him," Avarin murmurs as he rises from his chair. "My apologies; you cannot see him until she confers with Master Dooku." Obi-Wan tilts his head to the side, but the master healer has slipped out of his line of sight to attend to something on the monitors.

Another pause, longer than the last. Dread lies heavy in Obi-Wan's gut, sickly-sweet, like the scent of bacta still on his tongue.

And suddenly, the Force is clear again. "But," Avarin says lightly from somewhere behind Obi-Wan, "with a healer as esteemed as Vokara Che caring for him, I would not be too worried about Padawan Tori, hmm? If Master Jinn were here, I don't doubt he would be telling you not to centre on your anxieties."

Although he cannot see those sea-green eyes, Obi-Wan can feel the healer's gaze resting heavily on the back of his head. With a soundless sigh, he nods acknowledgement.

"Good,"Avarin's emerald robes swish in the corner of Obi-wan's vision. "Now, I'm certain you would be glad to know that the chip you ingested was picked up in the first scan we did – and it has, ah, passed through naturally. M7-D9 has already delivered it to investigative division."

The young Jedi blushes, wondering what retribution he would have to receive.

But apparently Avarin decides his patient has had enough excitement for one day, for he simply says, "It will be time for evening meal in an hour – can I trust you not to murder the droid in cold blood like your master did?"

Obi-Wan can only nod numbly as Avarin pauses by the bed to give his patient's shoulder a firm pat before allowing the room door to close behind his emerald robes.

The newly-healed arm twinges painfully.

I do not have a bad feeling, he tells the Force, silently, as he rubs the hard edges of his scar.

The Force does not deign to reply.

(:~:)

"Thank you, Knight Fisto. You may leave. Masters, if you would remain." Mace Windu's flowing baritone has an even rougher edge to it than usual, today. The Korun Jedi leans forward in his chair to peer over his steeped fingers towards the two Jedi stood before him. His voice holds absolutely no emotion when he speaks again; it is smooth and hard as slate. "Master Jinn. Master Dooku."

Qui-Gon and Dooku incline their heads in unison, even though the Force sparks between them like a fissured grav-mine, threatening to collapse in on itself and pull them into oblivion.

The twelve faces of the Council are grave, pained. Even Yoda's wizened features seem somehow more ancient – but perhaps it is the lack of sparkle in his usually mischievous green eyes as Mace speaks again. "We now move from the mission debrief to the issue of your padawans. Having read your mission report, Master Jinn, the Council is naturally…disturbed. If you would elaborate."

There is none of the usual defiant fire in Qui-Gon's gaze as he meets the gazes of the assembled masters. "We – that is, Master Dooku and I – discussed our plan of action once we realized our padawans were captured. In the interest of collecting evidence for Zan Arbor's future trial, Master Dooku thought it best if Obi-Wan and Huei remained in her hands until the next day." Something resembling defeat echoes in his words.

"And what was your opinion on the matter?" Mace seems troubled by his old friend's uncharacteristically lethargic mood.

"I was repulsed by the thought of leaving our padawans there for the sake of evidence." The last word drips like blood from Qui-Gon's lips.

"That hardly matters," Dooku interjects. "As you said yourself a moment later, there was little chance of a rescue operation being successful until the next evening, when the laboratories were nearly empty; the padawans would have had to remain there anyhow."

"Allow me to rephrase," Qui-Gon says mirthlessly, staring straight ahead. "I was repulsed by you; by your motive in leaving them there."

Anger flickers about Dooku's Force-signature. "Motive is irrelevant. There was nothing we could have done differently."

"I waited because I had no choice!" Qui-Gon hardly spares a thought for the strangely silent Council. "You waited because it was–"

"Because it was necessary!" Dooku cuts him off, actually hovering on the edge of raising his voice.

"Not that word–"

The crack of wood against larmalstone cleaves the air. "Enough!"

Yoda's growled command takes effect instantaneously; the chamber descends into a somewhat shocked silence. The blazing displeasure in the Grand Master's Force-presence forms a very effective gag; hallows the silence to lengthen until both the Dooku and Qui-Gon's signatures emit a certain contrite regret, although Qui-Gon is the only of the two to incline his head in apology.

Another clack, less sharp than the last, echoes from where gimer stick meets larmalstone floor as Yoda hops off his round seat to shuffle forwards. "Shameful," he mutters gravely. The sunset behind him makes his shadow grow longer, darker.

Dooku stirs. "Master–"

"Enough, I said!" Yoda's gravelly rumble, so rarely raised like the present, is as jarring as a physical strike. But he has not led the Jedi for eight hundred years for nothing. There is no anger in his raised voice; only infinite sorrow.

And then Qui-Gon meets Yoda's luminous green gaze and sees something far worse: disappointment. Jedi Master or not, he swallows and bows his head, accepting his sentence, whatever it may be.

A clawed hand thrusts a gnarled stick upwards to point at the tall Jedi's face. "Leave you may, Master Jinn," the harrumphing voice orders. "Awake, your padawan is. Tend to him you should; speak in private at a later time, we will."

"Yes, Master." Qui-Gon does not even attempt to ask how the Grand Master knows Obi-Wan is awake.

"You!" There is no mistaking the change in Yoda's tone as the tiny Jedi turns to Dooku, his Force signature blazing disproportionate to his physical size. Dooku actually flinches, but his dark grey eyes widen in surprise when the only word to follow is a softly growled, "Kneel."

"Yes, Master." Dooku falls to one knee, the Order's first posture of humility and loyalty. His dark cloak cascades around him in a deepening pool of sable as he inclines his silver-haired head, as if the night sky pooled from the dark side of the moon.

"Speak of your actions, we must."

"Yes, Master."

"Regarding Zan Arbor, also."'

A fleeting shadow ghosts across Dooku's hard features. "Yes, Master," he intones yet again.

"Explain this to me personally, you will."

The shadow edges towards the light again. "…Yes, Master."

"Hhmph." Gimlet eyes flicker to the younger Jedi. "Begone, Qui-Gon."

"Yes, Master," Qui-Gon murmurs. "Thank you, Master."

"Go."

Having been summarily dismissed, Qui-Gon offers the quickest bow he has ever recalled giving and very effectively high-tails it out of the Council chamber. And although Dooku cannot possibly have turned to watch his former padawan go, Qui-Gon still feels the flaming whip of discord lash across his back as the heavy doors close behind him, imprisoning Dooku's long shadow in the chamber beyond.

(:~:)

If anyone had ventured down sub-corridor three of the Temple Healers' Wing some five minutes before evening meal that day, they would have encountered a small, waif-like apparition inching down the hallway, with bacta-stiff hair and a thin blanket wrapped loosely over thin gown.

Obi-Wan clutches the standard-issue blanket tighter around himself as he resolutely places one bare foot before the other. He had wanted to take the thicker coverlet from his cot, but it had proved too heavy for his unexpectedly weak limbs. In fact, there is something profoundly wrong with the world in general – the air from the overhead 'cyclers seem somehow colder than he remembers from previous trips to the healers, and the plastiform floor leeches warmth out of the soles of his feet. Obi-Wan finds himself shivering uncontrollably, unable to do more shuffle forward slowly.

He tells himself it doesn't matter. He has to know.

A little further, and he halts shakily before a door identical to the one that he had passed out of, and palms the activation panel. The door slides back to reveal a single bed, its occupant supine upon its white sheets.

Obi-Wan crosses the dimly-lit room silently and comes to a halt when he is close enough to see Huei Tori's comatose features.

The young Nautolan sleeps peacefully, with his dark blue headtails fanned out on the pillow behind him, smooth eyelids closed, hands clasped over his quilt-covered abdomen. Obi-Wan shifts, and catches the glint of Huei's silka bead padawan-braid on the edge of the pillow.

As though he was alerted by the subtle noise, Huei's eyelids flutter and open.

Obi-Wan stumbles back in horror.

White, sightless eyes stare into clear blue irises – a searchlight that sees not the sky it shines into. The Force churns with confusion on one side and nausea on the other; and all the while, their gazes remain impossibly locked on an awful bridge of knowledge.

"Master?" Huei's voice is slurred by the remnants of sedatives; no doubt his Force-awareness is affected as well. "Is that you?"

Obi-Wan feels the smooth metal of the door at his back. He must have palmed the activation plate without thinking, for he half-falls through it, tumbling into the corridor beyond.

Alone in the silent hallway, he leans against the wall and slides to the floor, curling up sideways to press his suddenly throbbing forehead to the cool alloy. Guilt comes quickly on the tail of horror, bringing with it its friends – misery and doubt.

Obi-Wan shuts his aching eyes and lets himself drift…

"By the Force, Obi-Wan!"

Reality sharpens painfully, aggravating his headache. But it does not sharpen enough. Green and gold-striped eyes glimmer concernedly at him from what seems a long way away. Master Uvain…?

Obi-Wan supposes he should be vaguely insulted by the ease with which Tahl Uvain picks him up and carts him off back to his room – but then he feels a lick of air against his back, and is slightly mollified. At the very least, she apparently needs the Force's aid to move his weight.

"Summon a healer," Obi-Wan hears her say to someone behind her, a person with a white and gold-striped aura…

"Righ' away!"

Obi-Wan barely has time to register that that accent seems awfully familiar before Tahl has him tucked securely back into his own bed, with a warming trickle of the Force running from her fingertips to his sternum.

The world tilts, and then thuds back into place with grumpy sluggishness.

Finally able to focus on the Jedi sitting at his bedside, Obi-Wan manages a fake, lopsided grin and a jerky nod of the head, in lieu of bowing.

Tahl gives him a crocodile smile.

He shrinks back into his blankets, wishing he could burrow into them like a snow-mole, and waits for the inevitable.

"You take after Qui."

In spite of the nausea still swimming about his stomach, Obi-Wan frowns. Unspoken rings the question: Why would that be a bad thing?

Tahl's lips twitch. "Your master doesn't look before he takes unnecessary leaps," she sighs. "Did visiting Padawan Tori result in anything productive, hmm?"

Obi-Wan shakes his head slowly, a scream he knows he cannot release building up behind his temples.

"Did you–" Tahl cuts herself off abruptly and gives him a penetrating stare. "I'm getting Qui," she says bluntly. "Wait here – and don't you dare leave that cot, understood?"

Blinking – for Tahl's voice had taken on the tone she usually only used on particularly stubborn Qui-Gons– Obi-Wan nods assent.

The door hisses open to admit five and a half feet of worried Togruta boy.

"Lil' Obi! Are yer 'kay? Yer were all awesome an' 'plody an'–" Ezhno would have jabbered on, did a certain Master Uvain not silence him with a glare. The stripes of his montrals darkening, Ezhno declares lamely, "I brung an 'ealer." He flings an arm behind him to indicate a very severe-looking Vokara Che. Ezhno's ill-fitting Jedi tunics give this flamboyant motion even more flair; his overlong sleeve nearly whacks her in the face.

She does not look amused.

Despite himself, Obi-Wan quirks the tiniest of grins at his friend.

"Master Che," Tahl intones respectfully.

"Master Uvain," Vokara returns, wearing an expression gentle enough to be wholly foreign to Obi-Wan. It occurs to him that when Vokara Che speaks to Master Qui-Gon, she usually wears some form of a scowl.

"I caught Obi-Wan in some mischief," Tahl murmurs lightly. "He seemed to think that stepping out of bed – against Master Avarin's express instructions, I'm sure – was a wise idea." She does not mention he was halfway down the corridor when she found him. Obi-Wan schools the gratitude out of his expression with difficulty.

"Indeed." Only Vokara Che could turn such a simple word into a portent of doom.

"Please do not punish him too severely," Tahl says genially. "I was just about to fetch Master Jinn."

"By all means," the Twi'Lek healer mutters. "Feed fire with fuel." The trace of humour in her mien reveals a thin layer of sarcasm. But the humour fades to quizzical concern when Obi-Wan shows no answering flicker of amusement. She glances questioningly at Tahl, who gives her a significant look before heading for the door.

"See ya–" Ezhno manages half a farewell before he is pulled into the corridor by the back of his collar, courtesy of Tahl.

With the brash Togruta boy gone, the room seems somehow…lifeless. Obi-Wan slumps back against the pillows and allows Vokara to administer a particularly nasty draught of medicine and wrap him in a heated blanket. By the time he responds to her admonition to stay put with nothing more than a listless nod, ignoring the flimsy and stylus on the table beside him – he glances up and finds the elderly healer examining him with something resembling incredulous worry.

Padawan and healer stare at each other for a full minute before Vokara Che collects herself and asks hesitantly, "Are you quite all right, child?"

Obi-Wan nods, smiling again. It surprises him, in a way. Somewhere over the course of this mission, he had started to understand what fake smiles are, and how to execute them – how to tilt his head at just the right angle to avoid being given a detention by a harried teacher, how to let his eyes crinkle, just a little, so that the refectory staff would think only of how adorable he is and not of his blindness/deafness/muteness (they sometimes didn't bother finding out) – how to lie with nothing but his face.

So he smiles.

And Vokara Che reads his expression, almost extends a Force-probe, but decides at the last moment that this patient has seen enough trauma in the past few days. It is her mistake; if she had pressed just infinitesimally deeper, she would have read the lie emblazoned in black and crimson standards across the crumbling walls of his mental citadel.

When he is alone, Obi-Wan runs a hand over the scar on his arm, closes his eyes, and reaches for the calm of the Force.

His physical self falls away, and he is a drop of water, moving languidly in the current of a meandering river, forming endless swirls and eddies in the silvered stream. Obi-Wan flows with the gentle waters, performing a thousand different tasks with dedication and purpose. He is in the river and the river is in him; he supports the rim of a fallen branch, ellipsed against the rough edge as, together with a million other droplets, he sends the branch dancing into the air as the current increases in tempo from a waltz to a gavotte; he wears away at the bedrock, turning rocks to stones, stones to pebbles, and pebbles to smooth spheres of beauty; he rides the rapids on the back of a fallen leaf, sheltered in the crook of an elbow made of waxy white veins, feeling the thrum of the river reverberating through the harlequin surface he rests upon; he coats the claws of the Whisper Bird with shining mercury as it dives down to snatch fish out of the rolling waters; and he is a crystal of the Force, falling in an exquisite waterfall to shatter light into a spectrum of laughing colours.

Obi-Wan is defined by the river; there, in the caldron beneath the waterfall, he slips out from his laughing kin and wanders in the once again slow-moving water.

Light plays on the river's surface, and he becomes a part of every tree, animal and rock reflected there; the petal of a water lily, the ridged strand of a wavering reed, the scarred eye of a blind Nautolan boy–

What?

Huei Tori down without seeing at his own reflection in the rippling river, and Obi-Wan stares back up at him. A blue-webbed hand reaches toward the water and dashes through the reflection, and Obi-Wan is undone, torn apart, ripped to shreds as the reflection turns into a shattered shadow–

Obi-Wan rips himself out of the Force, gagging on the scream that does not make it past his throat.

And a quarter mile to the east and two levels above, Qui-Gon staggers against the turbolift railing, pain lancing behind his eyes.

(:~:)

Jedi Sentinel Tamesis Dooku has never shirked his duty. He stands now, ringed by the eleven other stars of the Jedi Council, and knows if he had renounced his duty, he would have been sitting on one of those seats himself. But a Shadow removes all weaknesses; constrained power such as this is useless. That day on Ventrux, when he had held his padawan, his youngest child, and himself broke over the child's broken future, he had found a fundamental flaw in his character, a flaw that must be mended.

A Shadow cannot have a candle at its side. A shadow cannot afford to be lightened.

It is…necessary.

Dooku raises his head and meets the gazes of the Council, and says simply, "Masters, I have come to a decision about my padawan, Huei Tori."

Chapter Text

Qui-Gon Jinn runs.

He cares not for the havoc he wreaks as he tears down the main concourse towards the Healers' Wing – what filthy Hutt-spawn had designed the path to the healers' wing to be so stinking long, he would like to know – weaving between the shadowed pillars, his boots far too loud on the polished Selonian marble, sending scandalised masters and padawans darting away on each side as Coruscant's nightfall stretches his sprinting shadow into a formless wraith.

He nearly crashes into Tahl Uvain.

Unconsciously, they steady each other, hands cupping elbows, boots sliding on the slippery marble.

"Qui! I was just about to–" she cuts herself off as she meets Qui-Gon's gaze. Something of Obi-Wan must be writ there, because the next moment she grabs his sleeve, and he continues his sprint with her by his side.

On the threshold of the Temple medcentre, Tahl forcibly pulls him backwards, murmuring urgently, "Calm yourself. Master Che will not allow a rampaging bantha entry."

So Qui-Gon calms himself. Sort of. Mostly.

He still knocks over a cart of samples when Tahl leads him down the spotless corridors and palms open a door.

Obi-Wan's clouded blue gaze snaps up at the hiss of hydraulics, and the next moment Qui-Gon finds his arms full with forty standard kilograms of padawan. Belatedly, Qui-Gon realises this is very accurate approximation; his apprentice is sagging in place, and the Jedi master is, in fact, supporting most of the boy's weight.

Qui-Gon spares a stray thought that Obi-Wan is far too light for his age and height as he settles them both onto the cool plastiform, leaning back against the mercifully closed door. He reminds himself to thank Tahl for this later. She is most likely currently waylaying the furious healers in the corridor beyond in an attempt to give master and padawan the quiet they need.

Obi-Wan is shivering. Qui-Gon frowns and half-rises to reach for a blanket…

The overwhelming relief that had poured from Obi-Wan's Force-presence ever since his master had entered the room turns abruptly to shame, and he pushes at Qui-Gon in his haste to back away. But surprised as he is, Qui-Gon's reflexes are hardly slow; Obi-Wan's flight is halted almost before it begins as two firm hands grasp his shoulders.

Masking his worry as he stares into his padawan's wild eyes, Qui-Gon asks gently, "What is it, little one?"

Little one.

The reaction is instant.

Zan Arbor's snake-like smile looms out of the Unifying Force, echoing through the intervening days as her cherry-red lips part with the words, "So you are awake, little one." Qui-Gon's vision bleeds into the past, and suddenly, his back is somehow resting against chilled metal, and his aching wrists are rubbing painfully against metal restraints. Something inexplicable and powerful and dark rises in his chest, hammering against his voiceless lips, roaring one soundless sentence, over and over:

YOU DARE USE MY MASTER'S NAME FOR ME?

Nearly drowning in the miasma of shadow, Qui-Gon reaches for the here and now, throwing away the fetters of memory–

He blinks, once.

The floor of the Healers' Wing is smooth under his fingertips. The bond in the back of his mind flares once more, before subsiding. Oh.So that was why Obi-Wan… Rubbing at his temples, Qui-Gon scrubs away the last vestiges of transferred memory, and raises his head.

"Pada–"

But Obi-Wan is already bowed before him, forehead pressed to the floor in a pathetic little kowtow.

Qui-Gon stares at his prostrate padawan for all of two seconds before hauling the boy bodily from the floor and depositing him back onto the cot. Obi-Wan jerks with surprise, not-quite-dry eyes flashing, but before he can raise his hands in question, his master has already wrapped him in every available blanket until he resembles a Rodian burrito.

With a fluid motion, Qui-Gon kicks off his boots and vaults nimbly onto the end of the bed, kneeling. "We are going to meditate," he says simply. "Yes, Obi-Wan, we will meditate," he repeats with a touch more authority, as something akin to fear lances across his padawan's gaze.

Obi-Wan shakes his head desperately, writhing in an effort to free himself from the cocoon–

"First meditation postion!" Qui-Gon barks.

Nerves galvanised by a solid decade of crèche masters' bellowing of the exact same command, Obi-Wan immediately folds into a silent ball, curling in on himself until his head resembles a tuft of grass growing out of a pile of snow. The image invokes a memory, of a frosty, open-air garden somewhere in the Temple, and an older Jedi's laughter as Obi-Wan, his point of view somehow lower than it is now, dances through snowdrifts.

Qui-Gon's gentle hands settle on Obi-Wan's temples as he takes this memory of a dream and uses it to tip them both over the edge, into the crystalline abyss of the Force.

(:~:)

The memories turn Qui-Gon's stomach.

His bloodied fingernails scrabble against metal; he doubts he can ever hear the whirr of vibro-saws again without shivering. Azariel; the acid flays skin from muscle. Little one; the Dark whispers at him again, inviting, calling, telling lies of power, of release from this agony.

Beside him, Obi-Wan's Force-signature twitches. Qui-Gon pulls him minutely closer, like a star tugging at its planet, and murmurs, We will weather this together.

The fog of reminiscence gathers about them, thick, imprisoning.

They watch as Vassar's dead gaze stares at them accusingly, a scalpel protruding from one lifeless eye. Pain and exhaustion melts into terrible guilt, and the Dark seems to switch sides, now, muttering murderer into their ears. Qui-Gon senses the change as Obi-Wan crumples, staring at the crimson-stained floor, hands pressed to his ears as a reflection of a blind Nautolan boy shimmers behind their eyelids–

And Qui-Gon reaches out with an immaterial finger and tips Obi-Wan's chin up, towards the ceiling–

But there is no ceiling.

Warm shafts of light cascade down upon the two of them, luminance from thousands of stars, and the encroaching fog of memory dissolves into stardust, lining the warp and weft of the Force with glittering trophies, and there is no pain, now, because the agony and guilt and hopelessness have all turned to gems that shimmer in the vast tapestry of time.

When the mists draw close, Padawan, Qui-Gon whispers, his voice echoing in the emptiness, never forget to look up. The light is always there, should you search for it.

The Force shifts, nudging them back towards a dimmer light, in a room where two Jedi kneel before each other.

Qui-Gon's eyes flicker open. "Little one."

Obi-Wan raises his head, and gives a tired little smile. He barely registers that the words hold no pain for him any more. There is such a feeling of peace within him that he hardly wants to move.

"You should sleep, padawan," Qui-Gon says quietly, shifting to stand by the bedside instead. "But before you do, answer two questions for me."

Settled against the pillows, Obi-Wan can only manage a slow nod.

"When you deflected that scalpel towards that man – Vassar – did you intend to kill? And," Qui-Gon holds up a hand to waylay Obi-Wan's reaching for flimsy, "when the Dark spoke to you, did you act upon its words?"

His padawan shakes his head vehemently.

A small smile plays at the corners of Qui-Gon's lips, "Well, then, my very foolish apprentice; what reason do you have to feel at all guilty?"

Wide, wide blue eyes. Qui-Gon fancies if the boy had text-plates like a droid, they would be displaying the words DO NOT COMPUTE.

"Sleep, little one," the tall Jedi murmurs, "We shall see what we can do to aid Padawan Tori when you wake." He watches as his subtle Force-command yields immediate results: Obi-Wan's eyes close, a relieved, beatific smile on his cherubic face. It is almost…cute. Qui-Gon chuckles even as he tucks the blankets securely around his padawan. The child is making him soft.

Scamp.

Not that he entirely minds, of course.

A muffled voice sounds from beyond the door. "Master Jinn did what?"

Qui-Gon settles into a chair and waits for Vokara Che to enter and rain down abuse on his head. Perhaps she would be less harsh if she were to see master and padawan together.

An adorable padawan has its advantages.

(:~:)

"Huei."

The voice falls through the layers of storm clouds surrounding his consciousness; but it is not a ray of sunlight, or cleansing rain. No. The word, his name, cleaves him in twain and shocks from his healing trance like thunder without lightning, without luminance, without fire.

And so he wakes.

But Huei Tori has quickly come to realise that waking is the worst part of being blind. There is always a few befuddled seconds when his drug-addled brain forgets that he cannot see, so his eyelids flutter pathetically over sightless eyes before he remembers–

–And the realisation slams into his chest like a violent Force-push, every single time, leaving him breathless, foundering in this anchorless waste of unvarying shadow.

But no, it is not blank, after all. There is something, sitting there in the emptiness of his mindscape. Something that might once have been a star, now compressed and chilled into a frozen ghost of light. The cold star has a name…

"Master," Huei falters, past vocal chords rough with disuse. "Have you come to take me home?" Unspoken: With you? The pause is lengthier than he had expected; perhaps he should not have so rashly named their shared quarters as home. But the medication is so cold within his veins, the ache behind his eyes already so tauntingly familiar, Huei desires nothing more than to hear the well-worn echo their quarters.

Dooku remains silent. Huei becomes aware that his master might not even be seated by his side; the subtle currents of air that mark the Sentinel's breath originate too far above him for that. And then, a faint shifting of heavy cloak and tabards, and a glass is pressed against his hand. Huei's webbed fingers grasp at the low-grade transparisteel, feeling the ghostly warmth left left by Dooku's fingers.

The Nautolan padawan takes a long, long draught of water before proffering the glass. "Thank you, master."

Dooku makes no movement to accept the container.

"Master?" Huei murmurs, his voice clearer now. There is something unsettled about the Force, like a distant toll of bells reverberating through the ground to shiver at his fingertips. A probing inquiry into their training bond finds it closed off completely, as though the veins and arteries carrying the lifeblood of the Force are shut tight, in preparation for amputation–

The Jedi Master speaks. "Huei."

"Yes, Master?"

A pause. "You are no longer to address me as such."

The words are delivered in a tone as smooth as obsidian ice, but Huei feels their impact as though they were physical blows to his scarred abdomen, sharp, unforgiving, like a gravedigger's spade in frozen earth.

"What?" The question comes out in a half-sob of horrified disbelief. His face must be a picture of agony, Huei knows, utterly unbecoming of a Sentinel's padawan – but Dooku has not called him 'padawan' since he woke.

It is this, more than anything, which seals Huei's understanding.

But apparently his body has still yet to come to terms with this revelation; the logical part of his mind snaps back to consciousness and realises his mouth is moving, and he is babbling, "Please – if I have done anything, Master – if I have done anything to be unworthy of your teaching, say it – say the word and I shall renounce it, whatever it is, please, I beg of you, if there is anything I have done…"

And then Huei stops, because he realises it is not something he has done. No, he is no longer a padawan because there are things he can never do again, things he will never be able to do.

Because he is blind.

Perhaps he should be sorrowful, pained, angry. Perhaps he should throw the glass he still clenches between pale blue fingers he cannot see, scream betrayal to the Force–

But he doesn't.

He straightens his spine, moving the half-empty glass to the side and somehow placing it precisely on his bedside table. He shifts, moving barely-healed muscles between the sheets, and kneels facing where his master's – no, Dooku's – voice had come from.

Huei Tori presses his forehead to his folded hands in a full kowtow.

"I thank you for all you have taught me," he intones clearly. Without emotion, as Dooku had drilled him to do. "May the Force be with you, my former Master."

A heavy hand, rough with age and callouses, lands on Huei's splayed headtails. "May the Force be with you, Huei Tori." The palm shifts, its warmth turning into heat, into a burning blade that scythes into his mind like a guillotine's fall.

Their bond shatters like wrought crystal tossed into a furnace, whiplashing back to score bloody furrows across both their minds.

Huei might have screamed. He doesn't know.

And then the man who was once his master is gone from side, and he hears the rustle of healers' robes around him, walling him within the prison of his bed. Hands that should be smooth flicker across his sweating brow, rearrange his nerveless limbs on the thin mattress, tuck the sheets tight around his shivering body.

Something cold enters his vein, and the twisting darkness bleeds not deeper in shade but tugs him deeper within himself, turning black consciousness into a doze, into what might be an artificial sleep. His cheeks are wet and raw, like fresh rain on a newly-closed grave. And despite the drugs, pain blossoms to the left of his breastbone, a winter rose watered by the rain, pushing its way up through the earth to open sable petals to the weeping sky.

And as sleep – the younger brother of death – claims him, Huei sees something strange. He had thought the darkness of his vision was absolute, before; but now his bond with Dooku is gone, it is as though the candle within him has been snuffed out. If he could sleep forever, he would; then he would never have to wake to the empty darkness again.

Falling forever, Huei wonders if he imagines the warm touch to his forehead.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon jerks awake in his chair as the Force snaps painfully, sending the air shuddering with the backlash.

A quick glance at Obi-Wan shows him curled into a ball as though to protect his soft stomach, swaddled in too many layers of blankets and too deep in the Force to be affected by the disturbance. The child sleeps on; though Qui-Gon muses that Obi-Wan really should not be called a child much longer. He cannot remember the last time this apprentice had even cried; there had been a slight mistiness to Obi-Wan's eyes a few hours past, but it too had quickly faded.

Qui-Gon finds he doesn't quite like the thought that Obi-Wan is growing.

But there are other pressing matters. Nursing the crick in his neck, he turns to the door and steps out into the hallway.

Dooku almost collides with him.

Qui-Gon supresses a momentary flare of irritation, but the emotion fades quickly, replaced with an ample amount of confusion. Given the terms of their last parting, it is strange that Dooku does not seem to have noticed his former apprentice at all. Rather, the tall sentinel's shoulders are weighed down with an invisible burden as he paces swiftly around the corner, the long cloak flickering after him like silken demons at his heels.

The Sentinel seems to be missing something, but it takes Qui-Gon a long moment to see it; perhaps he did not want to believe what the Force murmured sorrowfully in his ear.

There was no flicker about Dooku's Force-signature that signalled a training bond.

Qui-Gon's gaze swivels down the corridor, to an open door that pours and swallows healers and orderlies in equal measures. His feet carry him towards the commotion, and before he can draw breath, he is standing there, framed by the threshold.

He watches Huei Tori weep.

The healers fuss over the Nautolan pada– no, Nautolan boy, but the sedatives do not seem to be enough. In two bold steps Qui-Gon crosses to the bedside and brushes a finger over the pallid blue skin of Huei's forehead, sending the broken child into the refuge of slumber.

Qui-Gon straightens, and is met with the disconcerting sight of a half-dozen healers looking at him with gratitude. Normally it would have amused him, but another glance at Huei's tear-streaked face does away with that. Forcing a tired smile, he excuses himself with as much haste as dignity allows and returns to Obi-Wan's room. A glance at his chrono reveals the late hour, and Qui-Gon grimaces. It is far too late for evening meal.

He is a contemplating returning to quarters and scrounging up a miserable snack for himself when his comlink chimes.

"Jinn."

The voice that replies is somewhat mechanised by the voice replicator, but its musical tones and familiar warmth brings a sudden fit of nostalgia.

"Well, well, old gundark. I knew you would be up this late. Fancy a midnight snack and a nightcap to welcome your former padawan home?"

Qui-Gon cannot help it; a laugh bubbles up out of him. He hasn't felt so light in weeks. "Feemor," he chuckles. No other title is needed; the name is familiar enough.

"Master," his erstwhile padawan returns, his voice mimicking Qui-Gon's world-weary tone. "Meet me at my quarters prompto! You'll be required to give a report on Temple comings-and-goings, I'm afraid. Extended missions tend to leave you out of the loop. And what's this I hear about you taking on a new padawan?" Wry question or not, Feemor's excitement is all too evident. The static crackles with the unexpected rise in volume.

Qui-Gon shushes him. "Restrain yourself, Feemor. You'll wake him."

A pause.

"Oooh, so you tuck the tiny padawan into bed?" Feemor cackles. "I'm gravely wounded in the heart, Master. You never did that with me."

"You were out like a light every night," Qui-Gon retorts. He sobers, though. "We're with the Healers."

"Ah. I trust he is not too badly injured?"

"He's on the mend," Qui-Gon mutters as he collects his cloak. "I'm on my way, Feemor. Regale me with your adventures."

The pause at the other end is somewhat longer than is natural. Feemor is not one to miss how his former avoided the question; but he lets it go with good grace. "Well, the council has laid down the law. It is now time for me to take on another padawan."

"Ah, yes," the older Jedi answers as he gives Obi-Wan and the room one last sweeping glance. Satisfied, he heads for the door, smiling softly. "The requirements of rank and reputation, old friend."

Feemor's voice is distinctly mournful. "Well, unless you have any recommendations, I'm going to attend a tournament next week."

Qui-Gon lets his former padawan's chatter wash away what subtle shadows remain in his heart, and for the moment, he is content to be grateful that his current padawan is safe in the lullaby of the Force.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan plays with the harlequin grass under his fingers and watches the breeze rustle the silvery leaves of Eir's sapling.

He is more tired than he would like to admit.

It is four days after his shared healing with his master; two from when he was released from the healers' on condition he is confined to quarters; and half a day since he stole out of the cramped boredom of his chamber. The only reason he had not snuck out earlier was one Feemor Ner'iah. When introduced to Obi-Wan, the cocksure Jedi Master had taken one glance at him and settled down by his bunk for an impromptu storytelling marathon.

A smile flits across Obi-Wan's features as he recalls the acute discomfort that had graced Qui-Gon's face multiple times in the following hours. As it turned out, Feemor's memories of his padawan days are exquisitely accurate. The storytelling marathon had steadily degenerated into a backstabbing competition as, unable to pull rank on Feemor, Qui-Gon had no choice but to retaliate in kind.

Obi-Wan had emerged from the experience thoroughly more knowledgeable than when he entered it.

But that alone was not enough to prevent the walls of their quarters from turning into a cage. The Force had sung to him of freedom, and Obi-Wan had answered – by ignoring his master's order to stay put and sneaking off to his secluded garden instead.

And now, with the soft carpet of grass cushioning his back, and thranctills wheeling in the smoky sky overhead, Obi-Wan is utterly content. His flute is warm when he brings it to his lips, and if new buds push their way through the earth about him when the first lilting strains of music dances into the breeze, Obi-Wan does not see. His eyes are closed, and he sees only the Force as it washes his trivial aches and pains away.

After a timeless while, his fingers still and he opens his eyes.

Huei Tori's sightless gaze stares down at him.

Obi-Wan flinches violently as he twists to the side, backing away until he nearly stumbles over Eir's tree. Stray pieces of grass cling to his hair. Two paces over, the Nautolan boy stands utterly still, his Force-presence fragile and hollow; a shadow of a Shadow, a shade away from emptiness.

How did I not sense him?

Huei speaks. "Are you going to use that?" At first, his voice seems blank, without inflection…but there is an undercurrent of something terrible, cynical.

Startled, Obi-Wan realises his sword-hand is clenched about the lightsaber at his hip. With an effort, he releases his grip. The joints of his fingers ache from the strength of his hold; the grooves of his weapon etch stinging red lines on his palm.

Huei begins to laugh.

It is not the maddened laugh of a man despaired. Huei's laugh is a rapid chuckle that quickly catches and dissolves into dry sobs. His head-tails sway sorrowfully with each heave of his shoulders, as willow-fronds weep in sympathy with the gasping winds of the storm. Huei's navy-blue crown is hardly dull, but Obi-Wan becomes aware is something missing among those agile tresses.

It takes him a moment to realise that the Nautolan boy's silka-bead padawan braid is gone, as though twilight swallowed a constellation of stars to leave an achingly empty sky behind.

Pity worms its way into Obi-Wan's shell of wariness. Huei has obviously escaped from the Healers' Wing without permission; he wears robes slightly too large for him and a cloak so long it drags on the grass behind his bare feet. Stolen from a Healer's padawan, perhaps, when the teen was looking the other way.

Eventually, the Nautolan boy wipes one dark blue hand across his eyes and straightens. "Your Force-signature."

The other boy frowns, uncomprehending.

"I didn't know for sure that you reached for your weapon," Huei continues, letting the explanation fall out of his lips as though he were in a particularly disinteresting lesson. "I made an educated guess, Kenobi – and yes, I know it's you. No other Jedi has a presence quite so…silent. From what I sensed, you seemed frightened." His lips twist. "Cornered animals defend themselves from unknown monsters."

In response, Obi-Wan tightens his shields instinctively, smooth walls rising about his consciousness.

A pause, in which Huei's white, white eyes widen in realisation.

"Am I frightening?"

Obi-Wan does not and cannot answer. But apparently he does not need to.

"I don't know why I'm even talking to you," Huei breathes. His hands curl into fists at his sides. "You can't reply, and I can't lip-read – no, I can't even see your writing anymore." The twist of his lips thins into a smirk. "I can't see, and you can't speak. What a pathetic pair we are."

At this, righteous indignation flares into the Force, sending strengthening heat flooding down Obi-Wan's limbs as every drop of impatient energy stored up in over a week of inactivity threatens to explode outwards at once.

Huei seems to sense this, for his smirk widens further and he flicks out an arm. From within the folds of his voluminous sleeve falls a sleek cylinder that smacks into the blue, calloused skin of his palm. How the Nautolan boy managed to find his lightsaber, Obi-Wan does not know. He is far more concerned with what Huei's action suggests – unauthorised duels in the Temple are not punishable by expulsion, but very much toe that line.

The hiss-snap of plasma seems unnaturally loud in the cloistered garden. "Somewhere on my wandering path to this place, I passed the training salles, I think – I'm not sure, but I heard." Huei whispers. His voice is barely audible above the growing hum of his 'saber. "I heard the initiates sparring, and the Masters and Knights murmuring on the observation level above. And you know what, Kenobi?" A stray tear slides down his dark blue cheek, a watercoloured drop illuminated sapphire by the light of his blade. "I wanted nothing more but to be one of those initiates stumbling along to Shii-Cho. I would have given up Makashi, Force-techniques, anything," – a dry sob wracks his frame – "for one of those Knights and Masters to see me dance."

Huei's fingers tighten on the hilt of his 'saber. "Fight me," he declares. "And when I emerge victorious, you and I shall both know that blind I may be, but I remain the better Jedi." Only the slightest shudder in the Force betrays his desperation.

A silken thread of memory flickers across Obi-Wan's mind – of Masters politely speaking to him at tournament after tournament, only for their gently smiling faces to darken into sorrow and regret when he proffered inked flimsy for his answers. Their fingers had always pushed his well-worn substitute for a voice away, telling him that it was impossible, that it was such a pity.

Such a pity, such a waste.

And indignation distils into determination. If Obi-Wan could, he would have laughed; what he should do shines like a beacon in the Force.

His lightsaber hums in agreement as he flourishes it and brings it up to his side, angling the thrumming blade in the standard Ataru opening stance. A strange sort of exhilaration turns his thoughts into crystal – clear and sharp, wrought with utter certainty.

Five paces away, Huei flicks his wrist in two half moons, drawing a blinding cross of liquid fire in the air – a Makashi salute in return.

In that pure moment of pressured adrenaline before every battle where time slows to a crystalline trickle, Obi-Wan asks the Force to come to his aid. He cannot teach this lesson alone.

The air between them shivers as they each suck in a unified breath–

And azure and sapphire scalds their breath into flame.

(:~:)

"So what did the green gremlin say?"

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow at his companion as they emerge from the crowded tournament salle. "Must I remind you of the virtues of respect yet again, my former padawan?"

Jedi Master Feemor Ner'iah gives a snort that is entirely too lively to accurately reflect the serenity and wisdom of his rank. "You're getting old, Qui-Gon. As I recall, you were the one to bestow that particular epithet onto Master Yoda."

"I'm barely ten years your senior," Qui-Gon jests, partly to skirt the very accurate recollection. His sky-blue eyes twinkle with mirth. "And you're already sporting several early grey hairs."

"I'm going silver, not grey, thank you very much," Feemor retorts, smoothing back his blond mane. "And I've now got stray strands of silver threaded through my glorious head of gold– better than that bantha-wool mullet you've had for the past thirty years, hmm?"

"Rather effeminate, don't you think?" The older of the pair flicks a finger at the sleek tail of golden hair that flows in a waterfall from the back of the younger Jedi's head. A flexible string of wooden beads bind the straight tresses back save for two long strips that fall from temple to chin on either side.

A scoff. "This is based on the ancient ceremonial style of the Kiffar Samuraitai–"

"Afternoon, fellow ladies," a passing Tahl Uvain intones, her polite voice contrasting with the smirk that plays at the corner of her mouth. "My apologies for interrupting your – no doubt incredibly important – conversation, but it's your turn with The Pot tonight, Qui."

A pause. The Force trembles with contained mirth.

"Noted," Qui-Gon mutters.

"Master Uvain," Feemor enthuses as he shoulders Qui-Gon aside and brings his bow low enough for the end of his dangling ponytail to brush the polished marble.

"Master Ner'iah." Tahl's cool green-gold gaze flickers over him. "I see you haven't changed."

Feemor allows his grin to widen, entirely oblivious to Qui-Gon's warning glare. "You haven't changed either, Master Uvain. If I may say so, you've become even more beaut–"

"No." Qui-Gon's quiet statement very simply cuts Feemor off.

Feemor turns comically wide eyes to his former Master. "No? Are you quite sure you know what you're imply– sithspit!"

The latter exclamation was in response to an invisible hand latching about his hair.

"You m-musn't use the Force flip-fippantly, Master," Feemor manages through gasps of mingled pain and laughter.

Tahl wisely uses this moment to take her leave. Her musical chuckles follow in her wake.

"Master, hmm?" Qui-Gon muses contemplatively, absently shifting his Force-grip ("Ow, Master!"). He smiles languidly. "I would hardly call this a frivolous use of the Force – why, I see you've learnt respect again, now."

In answer, the younger of the pair raises a hand and gestures, nudging gently at Qui-Gon's Force-hold. The change is minute, but the subtle difference in angle is sufficient for Feemor to fluidly slip out of the grasping currents of the Force. He straightens with a rueful grin and raises a hand to rub at his stinging scalp.

Qui-Gon simply raises an eyebrow, though he barely restrains from grinning outright. To most Jedi, Feemor's personality might seem overly casual, even comical; but Qui-Gon knows that under this appearance of frivolity lies prodigious skill and a quiet wisdom only occasionally revealed. He nearly compliments the obvious skill with which the manoeuvre was executed; but it would be improper to feed the younger man's pride, would it not?

"Lesson learnt?" Qui-Gon inquires coolly.

"Oh, yes. It was taught in such a mature manner," Feemor snarks back, one palm still massaging the back of his head. He winces sharply. "Ouch."

Something of worry appears in the older Jedi's expression. "Feemor? Are you quite–"

"I'm fine," Feemor says quickly. Then a perceptive glint enters his eyes, and his face almost splits with a wickedly mischievous grin. "Aww, you must have grown soft! You were actuallyworried – I didn't fake the pain!" he yelps as Qui-Gon's mien momentarily darkens. "And you have yet to answer my question."

It takes Qui-Gon a moment to reconnect to the topic they were perusing prior to the interruption. Still, he gives Feemor a rather hard stare – the recipient of which shivers in mock-fear – before indicating with a small smile that they should continue their walk. "Master Yoda asked me if I knew why he summoned me," he begins.

"He always does that," Feemor mutters good-naturedly. "You know, he once summoned me for no more of a reason but to offer me tea, but he let me sweat in apprehension before him for a whole quarter of an hour."

A rich chuckle. "I remember. You staggered back to quarters with your shields almost decimated from the stress."

"I remember too, Qui-Gon. You sat at that wonderfully delicate Chandrillian tea set of yours and laughed at me."

"I did not."

"You did."

Qui-Gon waves a hand airily. "Ancient history. Anyhow, I then expressed to Master Yoda that I felt burdened with no little guilt over the events of the mission to Ventrux, and I that expected to be assigned some punishment or the other." His tone remains light, but there is a faint note of weariness in the drape of his cloak over his broad shoulders.

Two steps onwards, he finds the space beside him strangely empty, and he turns to find Feemor staring at him with a strangely troubled expression on his usually carefree face.

Qui-Gon frowns. "Feemor?"

"I was not aware you were so affected by your latest mission," Feemor begins slowly, real regret lancing though his gaze. "When I first saw you again a few days ago, you seemed tired, yes. But I wrote that off as worry over Obi-Wan still being with the Healers. I did not think…" he sighs. "I've heard the rumours, of course…but you dismissed my questions about the mission so easily, I assumed…"

A pause, in which the Force dances with contrite remorse on both sides.

Qui-Gon breaks the silence first. "I owe you an apology, Feemor. I should have explained the mission in more detail." A wry smile quirks his lips. "The fact of the matter was that I was simply too exhausted to address it." He moves a long pace forward and places a hand on Feemor's shoulder. "And on the subject of my guilt, it seems Master Yoda–"

The younger man grins. "The old gremlin told you to stuff it, didn't he."

"Language, Feemor…and yes. More or less. He may have made an insult or two to my intelligence during the process…"

"Good."

"Good? Is respect so utterly incompre–"

"For the first part, not the latter," Feemor interrupts exasperatedly, annoyance warring with an odd grin that pulls at his lips. "I don't know whether you…what I mean to say is that you've changed since I last visited the Temple, Master."

Qui-Gon cannot quite hide his surprise. "Changed? How?"

"What happened with Xan– I mean, what happened eight years ago," Feemor rephrases quickly when a shadow passes over Qui-Gon's face. "It injured you, Master. You no longer recognised the success of our partnership." He swallows, and for a moment appears exactly as he had the day of his knighting, all those years ago, still somehow unsure of himself, fearful of wandering away from the sheltering rock of his master. "But then I heard that you had taken on another Padawan, and I was so surprised I had no idea what to expect." He chuckles. "The reality is even better than anything I could have imagined; you have a resonance with Obi-Wan that very few ever achieve. I've only observed for a few days, Qui-Gon, and already I know that it is impossible for you to willingly do anything to harm him."

Genuinely touched, Qui-Gon tightens his grip on Feemor's shoulder in thanks. "Well, if the Council's plans continue, you'll have another new hellion to teach, yourself."

Feemor pouts mournfully as they resume their unhurried stride through the gradually emptying hallways, heading towards lesser-known shortcut to the tenth-level residences. "Well, there won't be, if that tournament we just saw was anything to judge by."

"It was not wholly a farce," Qui-Gon muses, though he grimaces as he recollects a particularly atrocious group kata. "There were a few promising students. A young girl in the Katarn Clan demonstrated a spectacular Ataru En-su-ma shoto shift – one Siri Tachi, I believe. Ah, yes. Obi-Wan has mentioned her once or twice in his written discussions with me." His brow furrows. "Perhaps more than once or twice…"

"Master Gallia's already expressed interest," Feemor grumbles. The long hem of his cloak flickers about his boot-tips dejectedly. "And if I were to speak the truth, I did not see any initiates who truly needed me to teach them, and could teach me in return. There were many who will no doubt mature into fine Jedi – but the Force did not call on me to reach out to them."

"You are in a quagmire, my friend," Qui-Gon chuckles.

"Master Jinn!" an accented voice calls from behind.

Both Jedi spin smoothly to face the newcomer. "Knight Fisto,"Qui-Gon acknowledges the Nautolan Knight's bow with one of his own. As politeness dictates, he retreats a step as Feemor greets Kit. What he observes during the greeting is strange enough; there is something distracted in Kit's manner, as though every other word he speaks catches on an unsettled thought.

Intrigued, he murmurs, "Feemor, would you–?"

"Of course."

Once his former padawan has moved a short distance away, Qui-Gon faces the agitated Nautolan once more. "Is there something you wished to discuss with me?"

Kit opens his mouth to answer, and Qui-Gon notes with apprehension that Kit's trademark grin is nowhere to be seen. Instead, his mouth is set with grim determination that is mirrored in the steel grey of his Force-signature. "It's about Huei," the young Knight says quietly.

Qui-Gon is surprised, but he does not show it, for fear of worrying Kit further. "Huei Tori?"

"Yes," Kit says, his voice oddly strained. His long headtails twitch about his shoulders. "I…I've heard what Master Dooku decided. Padawan Tori – I mean, Huei's – future is uncertain. And…and I do not think I am worthy in the least, but I thought that perhaps…"

"You wish to take Huei as your padawan?" Qui-Gon straightens unconsciously. This he had not unexpected.

Kit glances away for the briefest of moments, as if embarrassed, before meeting Qui-Gon's gaze once more. "Yes. No. What I mean is – there are things only a fellow Nautolan can teach Huei, techniques that will help him to sense his surroundings more clearly despite his absence of sight. I can instruct him in these, yes," – Kit's smooth eyes cloud with regret – "but you know that a master's teachings extend far beyond the realm of skill alone."

Qui-Gon frowns as he mulls over Kit's words. "I understand. This is a distressing problem, but why–" He clamps his mouth shut; he had been about to say something along the lines of 'Why come to me and not Master Dooku?' but the reasons as to why Kit has come to him and not his former master is all too clear.

"Master Jinn," Kit says, his lilting voice self-concious, "when you were debating whether to choose Obi-Wan as your padawan, did you ever doubt your ability to teach him?"

Yes. I, who had failed to teach a model student, who shunned teaching for fear of failing yet again–

"It was more than that; I doubted I could ever fully understand him," Qui-Gon murmurs. Seized by a sudden sense of concern, he nudges the bond he shares with Obi-wan, just to be sure that the headstrong child is unharmed, and well, and safe.

"So you understand why I am so troubled." Kit seems somewhat relieved at Qui-Gon's admission. "You are a full-fledged Jedi Master, yet I am barely a Knight; Even Master Yoda agreed that I was not ready to take on a padawan full-time when I visited him this–"

"Wait," Qui-Gon breathes abruptly, cutting him off. A few paces away, Feemor raises his head sharply as Qui-Gon's growing unease rebounds across the faint remnants of their old training bond.

"Master Jinn?" Kit inquires.

But the lithe Jedi master has already begun to move, the shadowed edge of his cloak rippling restlessly at his heels. "Obi-Wan. Something's strange." He makes his way towards the nearest turbolift in a half-run, his eyes focused on something distant, faint. Both younger Jedi follow at a jog, drawn by the tangible disturbance in the Force echoing off Qui-Gon.

"He's not hurt?" Feemor inquires once the lift door hisses closed. There is a note of affectionate worry in his question; his former master's current padawan is – in all but blood – his baby brother.

"No, but he's…" Qui-Gon breaks off as he stares at the slowly climbing level numbers, completely unaware that he is already half-crouched in place, as if he had to leap forward at any moment. His fingers tap a maddening beat on the dull steel railing beside him.

Kit and Feemor share a disturbed glance, and both their hands twitch involuntarily for their lightsabers.

The turbolift doors slide open with a gentle hiss of hydraulic pistons, but the durasteel plates have barely begun to part when Qui-Gon shoulders his way through them. The Jedi race down the wide, deserted hallway, the staccato rhythm of their boot-steps muted by variegated shadows from the translucent ceiling above and glimmering in the glowstone below. Glancing upwards, Feemor judges they are but two levels from the rooftop gardens; Coruscant's murky afternoon skies are visible through the thick transparisteel.

Qui-Gon sprints on as if his reflections were snarling demons at his heels.

As they slide around a corner, boots slipping on the mirrored floor, Feemor calls, "Where are we going, Master?"

"Obi-Wan's sanctuary." The murmured reply is nearly lost in the cacophony of plastiweave heels impacting stone.

"But what does that–" Feemor's mouth snaps shut as an unmistakable sound shivers through the air, as though a maelstrom of wasps are trapped within the four walls.

Qui-Gon's lips thin into a harsh line.

A final corner, their rapid heartbeats loud in their ears – a wide archway opens up into a garden before them, and the three Jedi skid to a halt before the threshold, held back as though by some invisible wall–

And the sight stuns them to silence.

(:~:)

The Force is alight, and everything it touches is lit aflame.

The very air burns with comet-trails of azure and sapphire, twin stars erupting into double supernovas that paint the sky with brushstrokes of cascading sparks. Plasma blades singe emerald blades to smoke; swathe upon swathe of grass grow blackened, burnt; and bloody furrows are scored into the weeping soil until the earth seems forever branded with the scorching light of two scintillating suns.

But no, not two suns; not exactly. Two blades clash in a desperate duel, revolving about their common centre as a binary star system dances to the celestial symphony; but they are locked forever in mutual aphelion, chasing each other through a timeless map of stars.

Obi-Wan's lightsaber is a brush of dreamsand.

The Force bubbles up from the wellspring within and fills every fibre of him with undiluted light; it burns so cold in his bones that he thinks that he may be nothing more than a lantern, with paper skin so full and taut with starlight that he might burst from within and with his death release a hundred thousand fireflies to join the constellations in the heavens. Laughing silently through the pounding drumbeat of his heart, he takes the music of the Force and paints the world a roaring azure. His eyes are closed, but he sees his dreams cascade like sand out of his fingers with every stroke of the 'saber, until he knows the world about him is coloured very shade to be found in the galaxy.

Huei's blade is a stylus of deepest ink.

His world is lightless, and he dances in a miasma of emptiness so complete that it seems he is trapped in the horrible vacuum between universes, devoid of stars or warmth. But Huei is not truly dark; if he were, then he would be an absence in the stars, a wormhole that devours all light and spits none out in return. No; his 'saber is a calligrapher's instrument, spinner of such beautiful shapes that they almost appear alive in the colourless air, wrought of sable silk. Huei's blade is coloured like the surface of every pool of ink is coloured by shimmering reflections, just as his eyes reflect all light that falls upon them.

Huei's 'saber grazes so close to his opponent's arm that the heat blisters the skin underneath. Gritting his teeth, Obi-Wan leaps upwards in an elegant corkscrew to bring a dazzling sky-born slash down upon Huei's head, as a hawk-bat would dive upon its prey. His eyes may be closed, but he sees the arc of his flight as clearly as a silvered bridge transversing the sky.

Huei's sightless eyes widen involuntarily as he senses the anticipating lick of wind rustle through his head-tails, and he gives a hoarse shout as he twists violently to his left, sparks pouring off the edge of his blade as it barely glances off Kenobi's 'saber – just enough to avoid a direct hit, but not enough to prevent an answering blistering of his rightmost headtail. He barely has time to breathe before Kenobi is on to him again; a dizzying storm of scorching strikes rain down upon him from all sides, as though his opponent waltzes on the wind.

Tears start at the corners of Huei's eyes, and he feels relieved, for a moment, that he can cry, that his tear ducts had not been scalded with acid–

He weeps because he does not understand.

He cannot understand why Kenobi does not exploit the many, many chances Huei is forced to give him in his blinded, desperate dance of Makashi; holes in his guard, whole quadrants of attack left undefended that any Jedi with eyes to see could obliterate–

Unless.

Unless Kenobi cannot see, either.

For an instant, a howl of fury uncoils within his chest, screaming does he mock me into the endless wastes of his vision; but then another thought strikes him so hard it nearly knocks the breath out of him, and anger and bitterness is forgotten in the simple question:

If Kenobi cannot see, then how is he accomplishing this?

As though his opponent senses Huei has reached a critical point, the attacks slow, allowing him a few moments to think. But Huei barely notices; his 'saber seems to move of its own volition now, weaving a new pattern in the silken tapestry he has so far wrought. Exhaustion clouds his awareness, bringing his normally sharp mind to a slow crawl. Round and round in endless circles he chases this errant thought; and though he always arrives at the same conclusion, he refuses to acknowledge it, unable to comprehend–

The Force.

He does not understand; had he not used it all this time? Is the Force not what flows through him, the power of which he harnesses to lend his footwork grace, to make his movements swift? What difference is there in the way Kenobi uses the Force, and how he uses it?

Somehow, the idea gives him hope.

Kenobi shifts minutely, the tiniest tremor shivering in the air, and suddenly his ankle is hooked around Huei's. Kenobi shifts his weight again, and the world tilts, and Huei is twisting, falling, scrabbling for a handhold in the intangible air about him–

–His webbed hand is caught in a slightly smaller human one, the only real thing in this emptiness, and Huei nearly sobs with relief as he finds his balance again. His other hand, his sword hand, no longer grasps a lightsaber; but he hardly cares in this moment, for his relief is too great.

It takes a long, long minute for him to realise the lifeline to which he clutches so desperately is Kenobi's hand.

Huei releases his grip as if scalded, and calls his lightsaber to his palm, swinging the blade up and across to hover at the base of Kenobi's throat.

The Force thrums once, as if with pleased amusement. Kenobi's grin is a flash of soothing honey in the still-stinging air. Huei nearly drops his lightsaber again as he realises what he has just accomplished without need for sight.

How did I–?

Kenobi's Force-presence radiates tired achievement as he steps to one side, thumbing the activation button on Huei's 'saber and gently pushing the shaking limb down. Huei is still reeling; but the pieces are coming together now, slowly forming a glorious, radiant whole.

Huei had used the Force, and it had given him power; lengthened his shadow when his original caster was gone. Kenobi – Obi-Wan, Huei finds himself saying silently – had let the Force use him. And the Force had shown Obi-Wan the world without need for sight, just as the Force had allowed him to speak to it without a voice.

Huei can no longer see the world, but he can see the Force. And the Force can see the universe.

The grass is soft under his fingers, and he realises he must have fallen to his knees. A wheezing, strangled sort of chuckle bubbles up out of him. He startles at the sound, and then laughs at his own comical reaction; he laughs at how bitter he was at his blindness when he had ignored what he was most blind to; he laughs at the sheer simplicity of the solution that had been right before him the entire time.

Someone is holding him by the shoulders, supporting him with warm, calloused hands that are too large to belong to a thirteen-year-old padawan, and a long cloak is unfurled about his shivering, adrenaline-drunk form, swaddling him securely in the Force, in truth.

For the first time in what seems an age, Huei welcomes the night as it envelops him, and he falls into the cradle of the Force like a newborn child.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon slides to a halt at the edge of the garden and allows himself a moment to gape at the perfect corkscrew his padawan draws in the air over Huei Tori's head.

Both Jedi at his side shift their weight forward, as if they are about to leap into the fray, but Qui-Gon's hisses, "Quiet. There is more to this than meets the eye," and Feemor and Kit both still.

They watch the scene play out for a long span of minutes, a battle orchestrated by the fierce hum of two lightsabers.

"What's Obi-Wan doing?" Feemor murmurs.

Qui-Gon cannot quite mask his smile of pride. "He's teaching."

The end comes more abruptly than any of them expect. Qui-Gon begins to stride forward when Obi-Wan executes a well-timed heel sweep and reaches out, steadying his faltering opponent; the slow stride turns into a sprint when Huei reverses the situation and brings his lightsaber to Obi-Wan's throat.

Qui-Gon slews to a stop mere paces from the pair as Obi-Wan sends a warning pulse through their bond. Hurriedly, he reaches out and grasps a fistful of Feemor's cloak. The lithe Jedi had apparently observed the same and had already been slowing, but he clutches at Kit's headtails in turn when the Nautolan Knight makes to pass him.

Kit's yowl and Feemor's muttered apology is overwhelmed by a sudden gasp from Huei's direction.

"Whoa–!" Feemor darts forward on impulse, reaching for Huei as the young Nautolan collapses onto his knees. A slightly bewildered expression appears on his honest face as the boy he holds begins to cry openly, those thin shoulders shaking with hiccupping sobs.

Something nudges Qui-Gon's side. He glances down to find his padawan at his elbow, proffering Huei's lightsaber. Obi-Wan's face is flushed and his breath comes in short gasps, but his smile is wide enough to split the sky.

Qui-Gon raises a questioning eyebrow at Obi-wan as he flicks his gaze towards the pair kneeling in the scorched grass – Feemor has already taken off his cloak and begun to wrap it around the young Jedi – and Obi-Wan merely shrugs, his blue eyes twinkling with contentment. He doesn't quite know why, himself, but Qui-Gon reaches out and beckons his padawan to press against his side as he allows his overwhelming pride to fill their bond.

Feemor shifts in alarm when Huei falls limp in his arms. Only after a quick check of vital signs does his shoulders relax. "Passed out from exhaustion," he pronounces.

"Is having a padawan always so…eventful?" Kit mutters to Qui-Gon as Feemor rises to his feet, Huei cradled in his arms.

"No," Qui-Gon murmurs in return, absently ruffling Obi-Wan's mop of sweaty curls and brushing a cool fingertip over the burn on his face. "It's just these two."

Kit nods, blinking slowly as he processes this. "Healers?" he suggests.

"That depends whether we want to report this to the Council," Feemor grunts as Qui-Gon crosses to Huei, clipping the boy's lightsaber on onto his comatose form.

"Shouldn't we?" Kit says.

"Hmm. I'm not inclined towards that," Qui-Gon announces, tugging his padawan closer. Obi-Wan buries his face into Qui-Gon's cloak, a sleepy smile not unlike the one that graces Huei's face plastered across his own. "We will have a discussion about unsupervised duels and following orders when you're more awake, padawan," Qui-Gon whispers down at him.

"Hm. Me neither," Feemor agrees. "I'm not sure exactly what happened, but everything seems fine, now. Feel the Force."

Three heads cock to one side to listen. The Force thrums sleepily, content and at peace once more.

Feemor turns to Qui-Gon. "Your quarters?"

"I think that would be best, yes."

The group moves towards the turbolifts in a sedate shuffle, to accommodate the sleepy padawan stuck to his master's side. Huei mumbles in his sleep, sleek blue eyelids fluttering, and Feemor glances down at him contemplatively.

"This one needs a master," he muses.

Kit turns, surprised. "You're not considering–?"

It takes Feemor a moment to understand, and when he does, his shoulders shake with laughter. "You too?"

"Well, yes." Kit appears somewhat abashed.

A smile quirks at Qui-Gon's lips as he shepherds his stumbling padawan along. "I'm sure you two highly intelligent individuals can find a common solution between yourselves."

Behind them, the wind whistles as it washes over Obi-Wan's flute in the grass by Eir's tree, and new buds push themselves up through the scorched marks in the earth.

(:~:)

"Data chip restored. Data retrieval complete."

The tech droid swiftly removes the blackened chip from its setting in the scanner and sets it on a tray. A mechanical whirr sounds as the data is processed, recorded, and pieced together; Mace Windu reaches out with a broad hand and keys a command into the analysis console, flicking on its display to peruse the data chip's contents.

He frowns. Beside him, a gravelly voice declares, "Disturbing, this information is."

The Korun Jedi spares a glance at the grand master of the Order as he pulls up another screen on his own datapad, this one from off the holo-net. "What's more disturbing is that though this chip proves the linkage of Arbor Industries to Offworld Mining Corporation, Offworld crumbled mere days ago; it is no longer a viable company, and its owner and creator–

He falls silent.

"Know him, we do?" Yoda inquires. Although he cannot, possibly see the 'pad in Mace's hand he already seems saddened by the news.

"Offworld was created by Xanatos DuCrion." Mace's voice is dark, burdened.

For a long moment, the diminutive Jedi Master is silent. Then: "Inform Master Jinn, we will. Whom shall we send to investigate?"

"Master Dooku will wish to, once he hears of this. But it might as well be a dead end," Mace frowns. "Xanatos DuCrion is far too accomplished in tying off loose ends."

Yoda's eyes are clouded with sorrow, glowing green on green in the light from the screens. "Send Dooku, we will," he concludes, finally. "But see a path to truth in this, I do not."

(:~:)

Someone is spreading a cool substance on his cheek when Obi-Wan wakes. He has a dim memory of plodding along behind his master until he almost trips over the threshold to their quarters. And then there had been blankets and a cushion and it had all looked so terribly inviting–

An ever so slightly exasperated voice says, "Do try to remain still, young one. You've managed to burn your face of all places, after all. And in an unauthorised duel of all things – if you weren't your master's padawan, I would have long ago begun to doubt your sanity."

"Avarin." Qui-Gon sounds faintly annoyed, but also somewhat amused.

"Qui-Gon," the master healer bickers.

Obi-Wan cracks open his eyelids. The dim light of the living space resolves into two shapes; one robed in green and wearing a long-suffering smirk, and one in cream tunics with a fond smile half-hidden by his beard.

"The miniature teacher graces us with his presence," Avarin says, only half sarcastically. His proud grin gives too much away. "Where are masters Ner'iah and Fisto, by the way?" he directs at Qui-Gon. "They were present at the incident, were they not?"

"They are addressing a matter with someone of authority."

"Well," Avarin mutters, "they're both fine, save for a stray burn or two. If young Tori here had remained in bed for another few hours, he would have been released anyhow. But," – and here his expression becomes sombre – "seeing as he has no place to call his own, it would be best if you could keep watch over him for a short while."

"Very well." Qui-Gon shows him to the door. "And Avarin…?"

"I won't tell Master Yoda," Avarin sighs. "So don't come crying betrayal when he inevitably does find out."

"Thank you." The door closes with a firm clunk, and the tall Jedi returns a moment later. "Padawan."

Obi-Wan sits up on the pile of meditation cushions, stretching languidly. If he had a voice, he would have groaned with delight; it is as though he has just woken from the most refreshing nap he has ever taken.

"I was not aware you were part-felinx, Obi-Wan," his master says humouredly, and Obi-Wan turns his head away, embarrassed.

His eyes widen when they land on a separate form on the couch across the room. Huei Tori sleeps peacefully, a beatific smile on his face. One of his head-tails is bandaged, stark-white against the cobalt blue of his skin; it almost looks like a padawan braid. Almost.

"Here." Qui-Gon pulls two meditation cushions out of the pile that makes up Obi-Wan's makeshift bed. "Kneel."

Curious, Obi-Wan lowers himself obediently onto the soft white cushion. Curiosity rapidly morphs into shy delight when Qui-Gon kneels opposite and produces a polished bead from his pocket.

"Red, for brotherhood," Qui-Gon quietly explains as he unties the end of Obi-Wan's braid and slides on the wooden marker, re-binding the three strands once the bead is secure. "For leading a lost Jedi home to the Force."

Obi-Wan bows solemnly, trying his best not to smile too widely. He reaches up to examine the end of his braid – it has grown long enough now for him to see the end clearly in the golden light of sunset. He decides he quite likes the way the streaks of gold shimmer across the scarlet paint.

"Vanity, Padawan," Qui-Gon reprimands, though his heart is not in it. "Now, I would very much like it if you were you help me prepare dinner. Master Uvain and Padawan Eerin will be coming – unless, of course, you find yourself yet unrecovered."

His padawan's answering scramble to stand answers for him.

(:~:)

"So, yer name's 'uei Tori, innit?"

Faced by a person so obviously non-Jedi as Ezhno, Huei can only carefully set down the half-peeled stickli-root in his hands and reply, in the rapid-fire diplomat's manner he has been taught, "My name is Huei Tori. Whom do I owe the pleasure of meeting?"

"Oooh, fancy wordin'. Yer like lil' Obi like that. But yeah, I'm Ezhno! Pleased ta meet ya." There is a horrible retching sound as catarrh hits something, and then Huei finds his palm encased in a sticky grip he'd rather not think about.

"Ezhno?" Huei says hesitantly, resisting the impulse to turn his head to the side to better confirm whether the speaker truly communicates so boisterously. The excited Togruta boy crows into his ear anyway and slaps his back loudly. Huei winces, and as such barely catches Ezhno's next words:

"Oh, righ', ye can't see. Well, ya see – oh, wait, mebbe ye can't – but we're even 'cause I'm deaf as a doornail."

"I do not think that is quite the correct expression," Huei murmurs, and Ezhno simply keeps speaking. The lack of restraint is unbelievable, but actually, Huei muses, quite refreshing.

Ezhno apparently has just read something Obi-Wan has written, because Huei hears him say, "Oh, mebbe it is 'dead as a doornail' and not 'deaf'. Yer righ', lil' Obi. But I like it tha' way. But hey! Ent you the fancy-schmancy guy who walked past us in the cafeteria back on ol' Ventrux? Bein' chased down by all the ladies?"

Thankfully, Huei is saved from inventing a response.

"Ezhno, Huei, wash your hands," Qui-Gon breaks in from somewhere to their left. The induction plates are humming, so he must be standing at the stove. "For further reference, Ezhno: no spitting in the kitchen. If you must, spit over the balcony." Huei senses Obi-Wan's wince as a tangible twitch in the Force.

"Yessir."

"Ezhno."

"Yup?"

"I was jesting."

"Righ'. Gotcha. No spittin'."

From where he monitors the bubbling concoction in The Pot, Obi-Wan turns away to hide his grin. Ezhno's surprise addition to the kitchen had been under the condition he help with preparing the meal itself; but Obi-wan rather thinks that Qui-Gon had not factored in Ezhno's propensity for trouble. In fact, Huei's corner of the small kitchen table is almost freakishly neat compared to the chaos that is Ezhno's. Qui-Gon's smile has since taken on a tight quality that Obi-Wan has often seen when they face particularly troublesome politicians; it is unnoticeable to most, but very, very amusing to Obi-Wan.

The Jedi Master in question flicks a perceptive glare at his padawan, and Obi-Wan immediately faces The Pot again.

The tap hisses as it is shut off. "Wot c'n I do, Master Jinn?"

"…Help Huei peel the stickli-roots."

"Sure 'nuff. Hey, wot's this holey thing yer usin'?"

"A peeler." Huei settles back in his seat, pressing a careful thumb to the base of the long strip hanging off the long stickli-root, he works the short blade across the surface, feeling the rough skin pass under his fingers.

Ezhno sets to, with much grumbling. "Hutt-slime. Yer fast, dreadlocks."

"Don't injure yourself, stripe-head."

Obi-Wan very significantly stops stirring The Pot, and turns to gape at the two sat at the table. Huei's mouth is open. Apparently, he had not expected those words to come out of his mouth, either.

Ezhno breaks the silence with a delighted shout. "Ye got the spirit, I got the bling, and Obi's got the brains!" He slaps Huei on the back again, and though the impact sends bits of stickii-root skin flying everywhere, for once, Qui-Gon does not seem to mind.

(:~:)

Dinner turned out to be a boisterous affair. Though Tahl had arrived promptly on time with Bant in tow, as per usual, Kit and Feemor had also turned up mere minutes into the feast.

"Oooh, stickli-root nerf-stew."

"Sit, Feemor."

(:~:)

Though Ezhno had already been introduced to Bant when he first arrived at the Temple, Huei was not yet acquainted with her. This, of course, needed remedy.

"This is my padawan, Bant Eerin."

A shy, demure, "Hello." And then: "You have pretty eyes."

"I have…?"

An even quieter reply: "They look like twin moons."

"Oh." A pause. "Thank you."

And then Ezhno had barged into the conversation, and hence Huei's small, fledgling smile had gone unnoticed.

(:~:)

As dinner winds down and Tahl and her young charge depart for their own quarters, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are occupied with clearing the table, Ezhno snores away on the couch, and Kit has also taken his leave – giving Feemor a significant look as he does – Feemor draws a certain young Nautolan aside.

"Huei, do you have a minute?"

"Yes, Master Ner'iah?"

Kit coughs self-conciously. "When Knight Fisto and I disappeared for a few hours today…we went to see Master Yoda."

"Master Yoda?" Huei's dark blue brows are drawn together in confusion.

"I should rephrase. We went to see Master Yoda about you."

Silence. There is a wild kind of hope rising in Huei's Force-signature. His hands are clenched at his sides in an effort to stop them trembling. "Master Ner'iah?" he ventures.

Feemor grins abashedly, and it shines through the Force. "I rather think 'Master' alone would do."

Huei simply stands there for a moment; and then suddenly he is enveloped in an embrace, or enveloping someone else in an embrace – he isn't quite sure which –his voice is salty in his mouth from the crystal rivers railing down his cheeks, and he might be babbling some nonsense or the other but it is mostly comprised of the words yes and of course and thank you.

Mostly thank you.

And Feemor – his master – is rubbing soothing circles on his back, and murmuring, "Kit – that's Master Fisto to you – will be assisting in teaching you Nautolan sensory techniques. I know that will not solve everything – it will be difficult, our path together – but I hope that I can teach you well, and that you can teach me in return."

A long time later, Qui-Gon and Feemor settle onto the sofa, cups of tea in front of either of them. A little ways across the room, Ezhno is splayed on his stomach on a pile of meditation cushions, an arm circled around Obi-Wan, who is swaddled in blankets, one hand grasping the edge of Huei's sleeve where the Nautolan boy has curled on his side.

All three boys are fast asleep, the light from Coruscant's moon scattered across their faces.

"Why is caring for the younger generation so exhausting?" Feemor groans as he sips his tea.

"You're getting old, too," Qui-Gon mutters into his cup.

"Of course, Master. We all are."

(:~:)

In the Temple's south hangar, a silver-headed Jedi Sentinel throws his long cloak over his shoulder, slides into his snug cockpit. The trail might be cold, but he does not care; he will search for his prey. He has no distractions to keep him from his mission now.

The engines glow, and the transport melts into the sable sky.

Fanart of Huei and Ezhno by Halpdevon on tumblr!

Chapter Text

The fluttering Criffian hummingbird darts through the translucent emerald leaves, its wings an iridescent blur of green and cobalt. The first chill of autumn gives the morning air a crisp bite, and all sounds further clarity. Lazily cartwheeling through the air, the vibrant creature comes to a halt and hovers over the russet fabric of a standard-issue Jedi cloak. The hummingbird explores the mountainous ridges and rolling folds of this wide, earth-brown expanse for a long moment, squeaking the russet hills bleed into a desert of cream cloth. Almost as an afterthought, it flutters down and alights on a warm, beige peak.

"AAAAH...CHOOO!"

Garen Muln's explosive sneeze blasts the hummingbird into empty space, where it flails a bit on the eddying currents of air before righting itself, gives the avian equivalent of an imperious sniff, and wanders off towards the flowers instead.

The lanky padawan it leaves behind sits up, rubs at his irritated nose, and mutters, "I don't see what's so funny."

Of the two other padawans stretched out languidly on the soft grass beside him, one makes his amusement known with a boisterous howl of laughter, while the other drops a grey stone flute into the grass and curls on his side, shaking so hard with silent chuckles that fronds bury themselves in his gold-brown hair.

The bulkier of the two rubs at his streaming eyes. "That sneeze, Gar–"

"Shut up, Reeft." Garen turns to give the third of their party a glacial glare. "Oi! You! Don't think just because you're not making a sound, you can keep laughing."

The subject of his ire stills himself with a herculean effort and grins apologetically as he rises to his knees, proffering a square of flimsy. Garen huffs as he accepts the sheet, only for his cool grey eyes to narrow when he reads the message it contains.

He throws the flimsy back into its owner's face. "For stars' sake, Obi, I'm not delicate!"

Obi-Wan Kenobi flaunts a smug wink at his friend, his teeth flashing in the early morning light.

Growling with dark humour, Garen leaps to his feet and activates his 'saber. Obi-Wan gamely does the same, his braid swinging by his shoulder, though the effect is somewhat spoilt by the fact he is still shaking with soundless laughter.

"Dueling in the gardens is prohibited!" Reeft calls hurriedly, worry deepening the natural wrinkles on his face.

Garen's emerald blade thrums impatiently, filling the air with an angry buzzing. "I'm going to teach this gutless blackguard a lesson!" he yells, humour flickering in his eyes.

Bereft of words, Obi-Wan simply gives a dangerous, come-at-me-plebian-smile and raises the azure length of his 'saber in an Ataru salute, a clear challenge.

Reeft's eyes widen. "Guys–"

Two blades scythe through the air, screaming in twin trails of liquid fire–

Sparks cascade onto the harlequin grass below; Obi-Wan and Garen's blades cross, but do not touch, both halted by the short length of the shoto 'saber thrust between them. The air is painted azure, emerald, silver; amusement, annoyance, and cool disregard spill into the Force, coloured with the same shade as the three 'sabers hissing at their point of meeting.

"I'm surrounded by idiots," Huei Tori says dispassionately as his fingers tighten about the shoto in his left hand. The silvery light paints his navy-blue headtails the shade of a moonlit sea.

Obi-Wan deactivates his 'saber, smiling good-naturedly as he reaches out. Without turning his head, Huei meets Obi-Wan's hand with a solid smack of palm against palm, acknowledging the greeting.

Garen also lowers his 'saber, watching as Huei nods once, as though satisfied, and returns his shoto to his right hip, opposite his primary lightsaber.

"Tori." Garen's voice is carefully blank.

"Muln." Huei's eyebrow raises in bland regard. His white eyes slide to the left, seeking something he cannot see but for the Force. He pauses. "Reeft Shinren."

"Yes," the tall Dressalian replies, rolling to his feet and coming forward to stand warily at Garen's shoulder. "What brings you here, Tori?"

"Why, I wished to immerse myself in the serene peace this garden provides," Huei answers sarcastically. "It seems I aborted a battle instead."

The Force stretches taut, tingling at their nerves.

Obi-Wan moves a half-foot to the right and nudges Huei with a shoulder. The Nautolan padawan turns his head to stare sightlessly at him; blue and white meet on a plane of wordless communication for a long moment, before Huei gives a small, resigned sigh, and the tension slips from his shoulders.

"I have a message from the Council," he says flatly. "Obi-Wan, Muln, and myself have been chosen to represent the Jedi in the youth ambassadorship program for the Senate."

There are mixed reactions to this piece of news: Garen straightens with interest, Obi-Wan's eyes narrow in contemplation, and Reeft frowns. "I haven't been chosen?"

"What, are you disappointed?" Garen pokes him.

Reeft shakes his head. "Nah. I don't think Senate work suits me anyway."

"Hmm – Who else is going?" Garen shoots at Huei.

Huei raises his chin, serenely unruffled. "There are several. Siri Tachi, Quinlan Vos, Bruck Chun," – his mouth thins with distaste – "and a number of senior padawans – though I hear that we will only work in coordination with Padawan Tachi, as we are expected at the Senate building on alternate days only. Vos and the others will go on the days we are not required to attend."

"When are we supposed to start?" Garen mutters offhandedly as he scratches a stray itch on his arm.

A smirk appears on Huei's sharp features. "This afternoon."

"What?" Garen gapes, aghast; even Obi-Wan blinks in surprise.

"The Council expects us in five minutes." The Nautolan Jedi smiles.

The Force freezes.

"Sith-spawned barve," Garen hisses. "You knew–"

"Four and a half minutes."

There is a flurry of motion and muffled cursing as Garen rushes to collect his cloak and Reeft scrambles after him. Obi-Wan allows his knowing grin to spill tangibly into the Force as he crouches to retrieve his flute. Huei makes no motion to acknowledge Obi-Wan's subtle jest, but stands sentinel over the chaos, an expression of serene amusement flickering across his features.

Bidding a quick farewell to Reeft at the fork in the corridor, the three remaining padawans hustle into a turbolift. Garen palms the controls, and the transparisteel chamber rises upwards with a quiet murmur of pressure pistons, climbing the side of the Jedi Temple's tallest spire.

The two levels that separate the upper-level gardens from the Temple roof are gone within the space of a breath, and all of Coruscant is suddenly there, filling the space beneath the overarching sky as suddenly as a flood of mercury, spreading out at their feet in a maze of convoluted durasteel and chrome glass. It is twisted, arcane, beautiful; and though the exhaust-tainted air surely must be reverberating with a million repulsor engines and the chaotic chatter of another million sentient species, here, enclosed by the thick transparisteel walls of the turbolift, all is silent.

On and on the vista stretches, towards the smudged horizon. Obi-Wan looks to Garen to find him equally captivated by the view; but a glance at the third member of their group reveals Huei blinking determinedly at the brass lift doors, his back turned towards the stunning cityscape he cannot see, as though in denial it is there.

The Nautolan's head snaps towards Obi-Wan when he feels the none-too-gentle swat on his shoulder.

"What is it, Kenobi?" Huei sounds warily expectant.

A blurred idea appears in the Force between them, accentuated by the ghostly image of a smile. Huei sighs, gives an approximation of a resigned expression in Obi-Wan's general direction, and presses a hand against the transparisteel viewing-panel.

He nearly forgets to breathe as the turmoil of the city-planet thrums through his palm, borne on the currents of the Force. The veins in his fingers run ice-cold; it is as though he holds Coruscant's heart in his grasp, live, vibrant and utterly gorgeous.

It is enough that Huei almost voices his gratitude; but at the last moment, embarrassment is victorious, and he slams up his shields while simultaneously swinging out a punch. His knuckles meet the rough cloth of Obi-Wan's sleeve with a satisfying thud, and he turns back towards the doors, face burning.

There is a whispering rustle of fabric as Obi-Wan raises a hand to rub at the new bruise, and something in the Force chuckles in accomplishment.

Huei takes it as a you're welcome.

(:~:)

The heavy stone doors swing open, admitting the three padawans into the revered circle of the Council Chamber. The daunting presence of the Order's most senior-ranked masters is rendered even more intimidating than usual by the presence of Jedi masters Qui-Gon Jinn, Feemor Ner'iah, and Clee Rhara, all of whom somehow manage to twist their heads around and skewer their apprentices with reprimanding stares without fully turning away from the Council.

"Padawans. You are late." Mace Windu's deep voice states, plainly.

Obi-Wan, Huei, and Garen cannot be faulted for taking their bows a little lower than is strictly necessary.

Eleven Councilors nod in return; Tamesis Dooku's empty chair is somewhat of a relief for at least three Jedi in the chamber. Huei's relief bleeds minutely, warm and crimson, past the otherwise solid wall of his shields.

As Obi-Wan steps forward to stand beside Qui-Gon, a glint of sunlight on gold dances in the periphery of his vision. Distracted, his gaze slides to the left and meets a pair of irises of a blue as cool as his own.

Siri Tachi's golden fringe swings over her eyebrows as her chin dips in a shallow nod of greeting, no more than is required by politeness. There is nothing to be read in her detached gaze; Obi-Wan would have tilted his head in curiosity had Qui-Gon not tugged warningly on their bond at that very moment, bringing his focus back to the present.

In the corner of his vision, Siri shifts uncomfortably. Obi-Wan tries not to smile; Adi Gallia must have given her new padawan a similar reprimand.

Obi-Wan. The name is underlined with steel, lancing through the bond. Obi-Wan's spine straightens reflexively as he snaps back towards the Council.

He seems to have missed half of Master Windu's words anyway. "–and so, despite the short notice, the senate has seen fit to fulfil the suggestion made by Senator Palpatine of Naboo last year." The Korun master's shields are impenetrable, but a deepening of his voice reveals his distaste for the senator involved. "The four of you," he directs at the younger members of the gathering, "will represent the Jedi as youth ambassadors for the Republic. I trust I do not need to stress the importance of this role."

The words hardly penetrate Obi-Wan's consciousness.

Palpatine.

Naboo. Xanatos. Dark. The contemplative unease that had hovered on the edge of his awareness now rises like a storm swell, surging up, up, straining at the barrier of his shields, threatening to flood him with premonition–

A broad hand closes around his braid and yanks once, painfully.

The upsurge subsides to a simple bad feeling.

"You will be asked to do nothing more than to assist the senators and ministers as requested, and observe political procedure." There is a wry twist in Mace's lips. "It would be wise of you to show an appropriately polite interest in this, no matter how well-versed you may be in diplomatic situations – from classes or experience alike." He glances pointedly at the Jinn/Kenobi partnership.

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan execute identical bows in unison.

Mace narrows his eyes.

A loud, throaty harrumph averts the impeding conflict. Yoda's eyes are cunningly perceptive, as always. "Expect you to show politeness, we do," he mutters. "But not deference."

"Should any of you be ordered to offer your opinion on anything that seems suspicious, or beyond the limits of the Code, you may respectfully decline," Ki-Adi-Mundi further explains. The Cerean's smile is warm. "We have utmost faith in your abilities; you were all chosen because we believed you to be the among the most promising young Jedi in the Order."

Garen's ears turn pink; Huei hides a start of surprise; Siri's pleasure floats muffled into the Force; and Obi-Wan frowns, mind racing.

If he is not mistaken, there is a note of warning there, hidden by the rare compliment. How many times has Qui-Gon told him to seek the greater motive behind a political action? And this is indeed a political action, Obi-Wan realises. If there is anything he has observed that Republic politicians have in common, it is that their every action has a hidden agenda, and every stated reason but a façade for some personal gain.

But this cannot be personal, surely? This involves the Senate and the Jedi Order; to be exact, Jedi ambassadors. Young Jedi ambassadors.

His frown intensifies, deepening the line between his brows. Youth. The aim, then, is influence. And yet it seems illogical for the Senate to use this method to exert further influence over the Jedi Order as a whole; surely they are not so naïve as to think that swaying a padawan or two will bring down a dynasty of Jedi?

Unless, of course, the target is not the Order, but a single Jedi.

So, the question, then–

Who?

The Force murmurs.

Me?

His shields must have slipped in his astonishment, because when he forcibly anchors himself in the present again, more than one member of the Council is staring at him perceptively, and his master's hand rests firmly on his shoulder. But strangely, Obi-Wan senses that he is not under censure – rather, there is a subtle undercurrent of pleased humour in the Force, a frission of amusement most tangible in Qui-Gon's warm presence. Plo Koon tilts his head in an accustomed angle that suggests knowing humour; Even Piell scratches his chin with knobbly hands and chuckles quietly to himself.

It is all terribly confusing. Glancing to his left and right, Obi-Wan can see his counterparts agree; Huei's mouth is beginning to thin in the expression he wears when he dislikes revealing that he does not understand something.

Mace Windu is quick on the uptake. "Padawans, make your way to the south hangar three hours postmeridian. You will find transport waiting." The Master of the Order's booming baritone leaves no room for further questions; he groups them all with one sweeping glance before murmuring, "You may leave."

Masters and padawans bow together; Siri Tachi waits for Adi Gallia's affirming nod before she turns to trot out the door.

Qui-Gon pivots, a smooth circle of boots and cloak; his apprentice follows suit, but then–

"Master Jinn, Padawan Kenobi. A moment, have you?" Yoda's voice rasps out.

The diminutive Jedi's word is law; it is not truly a request. Obi-Wan turns again, but not before he sees the curiosity that sparks in Siri Tachi's gaze as the door closes on her retreating form.

Master and padawan stand for a long moment, ringed by an incomplete constellation of eleven stars and a void.

Plo Koon speaks first. "Most impressive, young one."

Obi-Wan's fingers twitch for his flimsy, but he stays the motion and bows instead. At times like this, it is better to listen. He cannot imagine what would make him worthy of such a compliment from the Council.

"Deducing ze reason for all dis," Even Piell supplies, in answer to his unspoken question. "Vaht the Senate vants."

"Or, more appropriately, what Senator Palpatine wants," Mace murmurs. "He is...inordinately interested in you, Padawan Kenobi."

Obi-Wan suppresses a shiver at the memory of Palpatine's Force-signature: just as weak as many non-Force-sensitives, but utterly cold and empty, like a black, deadened star.

"We established that nine months ago," Qui-Gon breaks in. "Had we not departed on the mission to Ventrux so quickly afterwards, I don't doubt he would have extended another invitation." He pauses. "The important matter at hand is to determine why he is so interested."

Yarael Poof's long neck undulates as he speaks. "Perhaps Senator Palpatine wishes to run for the post of Supreme Chancellor in the next elections, and so desires a favourable opinion from the Jedi."

"That brings us to the same logical pitfall," Eeth Koth counters. The Zabrak Jedi rubs at his chin-stubs thoughtfully. "Why seek to influence a junior member of the Order, rather than, say, a Knight? Padawans hold considerably less sway than full-fledged members."

"More troubling, Palpatine's influence is," Yoda growls. "Favour him, the other senators do."

Obi-Wan listens to the exchange for a long span of minutes, not quite believing the Council is holding this discussion in his presence. These are matters that concern the Order as a whole; twenty-five thousand years of tradition and history depend on each sentence spoken here.

As if disbelief is not quite sufficient, the impossible occurs.

"What is your opinion on this, Padawan Kenobi?"

He must be so very transparent to them; an actual, audible pulse of laughter ripples about the circle as he stands there, stunned.

"Tell us, you may. Worry not," Yoda chortles.

Qui-Gon's rich chuckle is a sudden starburst of royal blue at Obi-Wan's side. Obi-Wan looks questioningly up at him – it is not so very far now, for he has grown somewhat – but Qui-Gon still has to dip his chin to observe Obi-Wan properly.

The Jedi Master's aquiline features soften in a brief, knowing smile down at Obi-Wan before he turns to the Council. "I may have a feasible explanation."

Mace leans forward in his chair, steepling his fingers. "Then let us hear it."

Qui-Gon's hands rest on Obi-Wan's shoulders from behind, as though assuring him of support. "I believe we may have underestimated the length of Senator Palpatine's plans," he begins. "Master Poof may have touched upon the right thread of thought...perhaps the senator does wish to use my apprentice to garner the favour of the Jedi, but not in order to strengthen his bid for chancellorship."

Understanding glints in the Korun Jedi's eyes. "Ah...then he believes he will win by popular vote, with our without our support. And Kenobi...?"

"Yes," Qui-Gon's grin is one of resigned pride. "Perhaps he foresaw Obi-Wan's potential. Promising young Jedi rise quickly within the ranks of the Order. You are an example, yourself." He meets Mace's raised eyebrow with a wry smile, before allowing his his gaze to rest on each of the assembled Jedi. "Masters, would it truly be so very astonishing were Obi-Wan to have a seat among you in fifteen years' time?"

Jedi decorum be blasted – Obi-Wan knows he must be gaping, and he does not care. Colour rises in his cheeks, which furthers his embarrassment – which in turn only causes his flush to deepen. He nearly cricks his neck as he dips his head to stare at his boot-tips. It has been many months since he has shown such a childish reaction to praise, but this is something else entirely.

Ki-Adi-Mundi turns his gentle smile upon then again. "The Force is our guide – let us not speak of the future in such exacting terms...but you are not incorrect in your assumption, Master Jinn."

"So, then," Mace Windu's deep voice murmurs, "Palpatine does not wish to garner our support for the election – he wishes to exert further influence upon the Council through one of its future members – presumably when he becomes Supreme Chancellor." A faint shadow of humour flickers across his liquid brown eyes. "But I am sure the Council is in agreement that if he assumes he can do so through Padawan Kenobi, then he is sorely mistaken."

"Right you are," Even Piell cackles. "De vorst choice out of all the young Jedi, if you ask me."

A short pause. Obi-Wan vaguely considers that if he were to join the Force at this moment, he would not be opposed to it. But Qui-Gon's grasp on his shoulders steadies him, anchors him.

There is a harrumphing grunt as the Grand Master of the Order at lasts breaks his silence. "Much to learn you have, young padawan." Yoda's gimlet eyes are warm. "Much rests on your shoulders. Trust in the Force, you must. Vigilant, you must be."

Obi-Wan nods, a lump in his throat. Perhaps he should feel pressured...but for some reason or the other, all he can find within himself is joy.

"Palpatine." Mace exhales. The word is a sigh of unanswered dangers. "Perhaps it may be yet flawed in some places, but this is the most plausible of theories. Thank you, Master Jinn, Padawan Kenobi. You may go...and may the Force be with you."

Qui-Gon bows, and his padawan does the same; but it is only when they are safely ensconced in the turbolift, and gently drifting down towards the bustle of Coruscant, does Qui-Gon feel a piece of flimsy being pushed into his hand.

As he brushes out the wrinkled sheet, Qui-Gon spares a glance at Obi-Wan to find him staring determinedly away.

Ink. Aurebesh. Sentiment–

Thank you, Master. You honour me with your words.

Qui-Gon passes the flimsy back to its owner, smiles momentarily at how the last vestiges of a blush still cling to those young cheeks, and places a hand on the golden-brown head in acknowledgement.

They float downwards, serene, through the chaos of Coruscant, and into the cool respite of the Temple proper.

(:~:)

Garen gives a low, appreciative whistle over the cacophony of the hangar floor when it becomes apparent that the transport arranged is a top-grade private Temple aircar, usually reserved for only the highest-ranked Jedi or guests of the Order.

"I want to pilot," he declares as the group of padawans approach the gleaming piece of machinery.

"As you are yet two years below the planet's legal flying age, I think that is highly unlikely," Huei snipes, from where he paces shoulder-to-shoulder with Obi-Wan.

Garen does not turn, but his back stiffens. "I'll have you know my master said I'm the most promising pilot in the fighter-ace program in centuries."

Obi-Wan grimaces at the spike in tension in the Force. A line of hover-crates rattle precariously towards them, pushed by sweating Temple staff member. Obi-Wan taps his companion's elbow twice, and without breaking stride, Huei pivots smoothly to the left.

Not one of them speaks as the hover-crates pass by, the whine of ancient repulsor-lifts drowning out all else.

Garen's Force-signature flickers, Huei quickens his step, and Obi-Wan braces himself mentally.

"You're such a–"

"Muln, you–"

Obi-Wan feels a whisper of wind brush his cloak as a slim figure elbows past him to shove through both Huei and Garen with an oddly graceful motion.

Siri Tachi flings a glance over her shoulder that encompasses all three male padawans in a single burning stare of disdain, and hisses, "Men." Turning smartly, she continues towards their transport with brisk clip, short braid flowing over one ear like a conqueror's pennant.

Obi-Wan pauses for a moment before following her, slipping between a statue-like Huei and an oddly still Garen. He catches the beginning of a whispered conversation behind him.

"Does she think she's a queen or something?" Garen growls.

"She can't be older than twelve." Huei mutters, sniffing. "And she sounds ten."

"Exactly."

"Quite."

The Force warms, alight with indignant agreement – and suddenly splutters, muting into a vague air of awkwardness.

Already several paces ahead, Obi-Wan grins.

Huei's boot-steps quicken into a jog, and a moment later he has returned to his original spot by Obi-Wan's side, albeit with shields pulled a little tighter than usual.

When they come within arm's length of the sleek craft, Huei reaches up and places a calloused hand on the humming surface. The air chimes gently as he sends a Force-pulse through the latticework, reading the structure and wiring of the vessel. He snatches his hand back as a worrying clunk sounds from within the metallic belly.

A lanky shape shoots out of the underside of the aircar and would have taken off Huei's feet at the ankles had the nimble Nautolan not reacted so quickly. To his credit, he only takes an instant to recover; the moment he does, though, his opaque eyes narrow and he snarls, "Ezhno!"

The adolescent Togruta boy beams up at them from beneath tar-smudged goggles, rolls off the repulsor platform he had been using to access the underside of the transport, and leaps to his feet in a tangle of gangly limbs.

"Dreadlocks!" he yells, criminally happy.

A tic appears at the corner of Huei's otherwise smooth brow.

Ezhno grins ever wider and pushes the grimy goggles up his forehead with a gloved hand, revealing a laughing pair of earthen-brown eyes. "Where're y'all 'eaded off te then?" His gold-striped headtails are coated in slime.

Garen seems to have no qualms about clasping Ezhno's sticky forearm in greeting; Obi-Wan raises a hand and successfully manages to prevent himself from being enveloped in a tar-smeared hug. Siri edges behind him, and Obi-Wan is momentarily pleased with himself – and then he realises that Siri is not looking for protection. Rather, she seems to view him as nothing more than a barrier between herself and grime.

"The Senate building."

All five of them turn to the new voice, and Obi-Wan smiles in recognition, bowing.

The pilot grins in return, jogging down the ramp. "Kenobi! You've grown some since I last saw you."

"You know each other?" Garen voices.

"Yeah," the stout Dressalian answers. "The name's Saret. I piloted Kenobi and Master Jinn to their first mission – are those air-intake lines looking good?" The latter part is directed to Ezhno, who tucks a vibro-drill into his oil-streaked overalls and nods enthusiastically.

"Pumpin' like they're new," Ezhno declares. "This is righ' fun – better 'n workin' in the crèche-things with them babies, anyway. Sticky lil' tots." He wipes glue-covered hands on his front, supremely indifferent to the irony. Siri stares.

"Many thanks," Saret chuckles. "All right, get on board. We want to avoid the mid-afternoon jams near CoCo Town, and it wouldn't do for you to be late."

(:~:)

The interior of the aircar is plush, its engine silent, and its occupants more so. Each Jedi seems wrapped in their own thoughts; even usually cocksure Garen frowns contemplatively at the passing air-lanes, grey eyes as cloudy as the sky through the tinted transparisteel windows.

Obi-Wan sits by one such elegant frame, tapping absently into the Force. It is weirdly disturbed, uneven, like the pool of a long-dormant geyser stirred into movement before it should erupt. After an indeterminate amount of time, the chrome towers seem to meld into one another, each as gaudily designed as the next, glass and steel stalagmites reaching into the heavens like countless identical towers of babel.

A flash of movement catches his eye.

He leans forward, azure eyes searching. There, ahead – a glitzy commercial office tower, one with its surface covered in billions of transclucent holo-plates, until the kilometres-high tower becomes one enormous holo-screen. At present, it showcases one of the many holo-net news reports.

BREAKING NEWS, it reads – in letters each as tall as a medium-sized inter-system frigate – IN CRIME: EXTREMIST ORGANISATION 'THE CRUORVEN' DECLARE ACTIONS AGAINST THE SENATE. FRINGE-SCIENCE RESEARCHER TO BE SENTENCED IN THREE DAYS AFTER "OVERWHELMING" EVIDENCE PRESENTED IN COURT.

An icy hand seems to grasp at Obi-Wan's arm; his scar throbs once in painful portent. The face of the tower flickers with static, like innumerable glowbeetles rustling their carapaces all at once; and then, like a fresh-faced ghost, she appears, formed from a billion green specks of decay.

Jenna Zan Arbor looms out of the obsidian glass of the tower surface like a colossal leviathan rising out of an ocean abyss; a creature of the dark covered in the phosphorescent green light of a hundred million holo-projectors.

She smiles, like a sea-viper bares its fangs, and Obi-Wan remembers that smile, remembers how white those teeth were when she whispered his name, how in his agony her lipstick had made those white teeth look as though they were dripping with blood. He clamps down on his training bond before his terror can transmit to his master; even when presenting evidence, he had not seen her; his condition had allowed him to write a statement and submit it to the courts.

The image of Zan Arbor gestures, and the three-dimensional adaptors seem to peel her hand off from the smooth, opaque wall, and her transparent emerald fingers appear to claw towards the little Jedi craft skirting the behemoth of a tower. Fear roots Obi-Wan in place, and his fingers are white about the flute in his sleeve, seeking the Force, the Force...

Reprieve comes shockingly quickly.

The aircar skips a little on the turbulent air-currents that skirl about the corner of the tower, changes air-lanes with a brief burst of sublight thrusters, and drops away into the Senate District. The ghost of a holo-image might have reached out behind them, but Obi-Wan cannot see, and for that he is grateful.

He turns back towards the interior of the aircar, cold sweat on his brow – to find three pairs of eyes fixated upon him. Of the three other padawans, Huei's stare is by far the most calculating – unseeing, and yet keenly perceptive.

Calming his racing heart, Obi-Wan wipes away the sticky sweat of fear and reaches for his flimsy.

He only hopes he can come up with a convincing enough excuse for why the Force is trembling.

(:~:)

By the time Saret brings the aircar to a gliding halt in the restricted docking section by the second-level entrance to the Senate building, Obi-Wan is once more the embodiment of Jedi serenity. His robes are immaculate, his boots are unmarked; his cloak is a heavy wave of solemnity, and his braid a plumb-line anchoring him to the gravitas of his role.

If the three padawans following him down the ramp were friends, they would no doubt have shared a look of worried incredulity between themselves. As it is, Siri Tachi, Garen Muln, and Huei Tori simply walk on, each wrestling with their own doubts.

Obi-Wan remains coolly unresponsive as they are greeted by a thin woman wearing silk and jewels and a smile; he bows when it is required, and gives a semblance of a grin when an attempt at humour is detected; he does not move when someone takes Garen elsewhere, or when an aide tries to lead Huei away by the shoulder, only for the Nautolan padawan to shrug him off and stride ahead.

The woman smiles – she seems to always be doing that, even though it never quite reaches her eyes – and titters, "Jedi Tachi – you are assigned to Senator Palpatine of Naboo. I know, dear, it is quite the honour! He thought up this program, after all. I believe he asked for you personally, when presented with the list of Jedi participants."

Obi-Wan's neck twinges painfully as he snaps his head to his right. He catches Siri's face in a peculiar expression: halfway between annoyance at being called a dear, and surprise that Palpatine should favour her above the other Jedi.

He opens his mouth – but she is gone, whisked away by another aide before he remembers he cannot speak her name anyway.

"Now you, pet," the woman simpers, "Your work will be quite exciting. You'll be assigned to the new Republic Cultural Minister!"

Inclining his head politely, Obi-Wan waits for her to name the new minister – but she doesn't.

"I'm afraid we don't quite know his name as of yet," she murmurs, embarassed. "The talks over the post ended this morning – the position isn't decided by public vote, and with the recent attacks on the Senate's cybernetic network, the administration hasn't been informed of his name."

Attacks?

"Oh, but it's nothing to worry about!" she waves a pointy-nailed hand. "It hasn't even made it onto the holo-net news. Anyhow, the new minister is due to arrive in ten minutes – you may wait in his office for him."

And then she passes him over to someone else, as though he is a parcel at a system-border sorting checkpoint, and there is a long stretch of crimson deep-pile carpet, a turbolift, more carpet, and then a sober Felucian-wood door.

That someone is nice enough to open the door for him and to indicate the very much not-for-underage-sentients drinks cooler, and then slam the door behind his retreating form.

Obi-Wan stands there for a moment, before striding across the elegant chamber to the floor-to-ceiling window. The pulse of the city beyond the transparent border calms him, and he closes his eyes to wait in the moment.

Footsteps, muffled by the carpet; there is a starburst of laughter behind the door, a deep, musical arpeggio of notes that scatter into the Unifying Force like liquid sunlight.

Memory.

The door opens, and Obi-Wan turns.

(:~:)

"Fretting about yours?"

"No, Feemor."

"Oh, no, I forgot you don't fret." The blond-haired Jedi smirks at his former master. The hush of the Archives is all around them, seeming to muffle and amplify their words all at once.

"You're right. I don't," Qui-Gon snarks back at him. His fingers dance over the spines of the holo-books on the bookcase beside him, searching for some unknown volume.

Feemor nods sagely. "You're just distracted, is all."

"I most certainly am not–" Qui-Gon breaks off his rising voice and bows deeply as the irately suspicious face of Master Archivist Madame Nu appears around the corner. "–distracted," he whispers, once he deems it safe to speak.

"Hm. Is that why you've skipped over Spineferous Specimens of the Andorian World four times already without locating it?"

Qui-Gon halts. Closes his eyes. Sighs.

Feemor extends a hand and hovers the thick volume off the shelf. "Here, Master," he grins.

"Thank you," Qui-Gon grinds out, grasping the book.

Feemor raises an eyebrow. "And...?"

"You expect payment?"

"Of course. Give and take."

"Frugal barve."

"I was taught by the best."

Qui-Gon starts down the aisle, his hand rising to rub at his temple. "Obi-Wan's shielding from me." Columns of books rise on either side of him, flanged barriers of knowledge and history.

"And you're letting that remain the case because...?"

"I can't offer him adequate comfort when he's ten districts away." Frustration lends Qui-Gon's usually sedate voice a growling undercurrent. "I can speak to him through the bond, but he can only reply with images and impressions. Speaking through a comm would come with same problems – click-code does not convey emotion well, as I'm sure you're aware." The leonine Jedi completes the needed procedures and stalks out of the Archives with the holo-volume tucked under a sleeve.

Feemor waits patiently.

"And," Qui-Gon mutters, "I'd rather not invade his privacy by mind-probing him."

"I'd hardly call it a mind-probe if you were to do it," Feemor rebuts. "You're his master, you should – Master Dyas." Both Jedi bow in unison to the passing Council member.

Sifo-Dyas nods acknowledgement to them and continues on his way, his new padawan's shock of white hair gliding along in his wake. Feemor and Qui-Gon stop to look after them; the padawan turns his head for a moment, but those ice-blue eyes widen at the scrutiny of the two masters before snapping back to his own.

Qui-Gon's mouth thins as he watches Bruck Chun scurry after his master.

Feemor murmurs from beside him, "Is that who Obi-Wan...?"

"Yes."

Feemor grimaces. "The Council probably only allowed the pairing because Master Dyas was the one who wished it."

"I will not begrudge the boy his chance at knighthood," Qui-Gon mutters.

"Hm. You sound awfully begrudging."

Qui-Gon bites back a retort. Bruck Chun is the exact opposite of Obi-Wan – the white-haired boy seems to revel in self-importance, while Qui-Gon would not be surprised if Obi-Wan were to remain so blasted self-deprecatory, even in the distant future should he himself sit on the Council.

"Let us speak of other matters," Feemor interjects. "Do you know which greasy politician your pup's been assigned to yet?"

"He's not my pup. And no, I don't. It's a newly selected position. They said they would send me a message once they confirmed the name."

As though it hears the thread of their conversation, the chime of Qui-Gon's comlink rings out from his hip. He deftly flicks the display open, revealing two short lines of green text.

Feemor hums merrily as he paces along – only to halt and swivel when his former master disappears from his side. "Qui-Gon?"

The tall Jedi stands hunched over the communicator in his palm, his features closed. Something of shock echoes through the Force.

"Impossible," Qui-Gon murmurs.

"What?" Feemor circles around him and peers at the double-line of text. "Who's this Ben-Avi – oh."

Qui-Gon pockets the comm and pivots towards the nearest turbolift, his cloak billowing behind him like the furled clouds of an oncoming storm.

"Where are you hea–"

"The Senate building. If you're going to come, get in. Now." The last word is a shadow of a hissed command that Feemor is all-too-used to hearing from his padawan days.

Cursing coincidence or the Unifying Force, Feemor darts after his former master.

(:~:)

"Hello, there."

A musical voice. Warm, familiar.

The first impression Obi-Wan has of this new apparition is a pair of twinkling blue eyes, long, greying, golden-brown hair tied back in a ponytail, and the softest smile he has ever come across in his life. His gaze travels over the high-collared frock-coat of deepest ultramarine, the cerulean lining of which flickers into view when the man leans forward and squints at him.

Obi-Wan becomes aware that the late afternoon sun blazes through the window behind him, turning him into nothing more than a featureless, obsidian silhouette etched against the backdrop of the city. He shifts, but before he can move more than a half-step, the Force shudders, and his eyes are once more arrested by the coat of arms stitched in silver thread over the left breast of this stranger's coat: a Stewjon Songbird, its wings raised in preparation for flight.

Stranger...?

The figure steps forward, and Obi-Wan starts, moving out of the glare of Coruscant Prime and allowing the man to focus on his features.

The man's intake of breath is sharp, shocked; the Force seems to suck in a breath with him, teetering, teetering...

Obi-Wan reaches into his pocket and removes his square of flimsy. He had prepared a statement of introduction beforehand, and he hands it over with a short bow.

My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi apprentice. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance; I very much look forward to working with you.

The minister lets out a gasp that sounds like a sob; Obi-Wan straightens up from his bow, astonished to find tears pooling at the edge of those cerulean eyes.

Long, graceful fingers brush over the flimsy, lingering on the words Obi-Wan Kenobi.

At long last, the man seems to find his voice. "Obi-Wan?" he murmurs, wonderingly, gently, as though afraid the boy before him will disappear.

Obi-Wan does not understand why the Force clamours for his attention, as though it has something cataclysmically important to tell him, but he nods in acknowledgement anyway.

"Do you...do you remember...?" the minister ventures, only to cut himself off. "No, no, of course you wouldn't..."

He straightens, then, and Obi-Wan watches him close his eyes once.

Blink.

"Obi-Wan, my name is Ben-Avi – and you can call me Ben, but–"

Ben-Avi what? The Force is saying something, something he isn't sure he wants to hear. He inexplicably and suddenly wishes for Qui-Gon's steady presence.

The man leans forward and places two trembling hands on Obi-Wan's shoulder. "Obi-Wan, my full name is Ben-Avi Ken–"

Klaxon alarms shriek into being above them; they are plunged into darkness as blast shutters slam closed over the window and door. Obi-Wan reacts instinctively, palming his lightsaber and activating it. The searing line of azure fire snaps into being between man and boy.

In the blazing light of truth, of the Force, Obi-Wan realises that the man's irises are the exact same shade of blue as his own.

Halfway across the district, Qui-Gon guns the speeder to its limit, one name flaring through his mind in a firework of disquiet:

Ben-Avi Kenobi.

Chapter Text

The dusk flames of Coruscant Prime paint the wings of the solitary starfighter awash with sparking embers, sending off comet-trails of flame every time it lurches. The tiny craft limps down the last few hundred metres into the Temple hangar, setting down on the polished surface with a shriek of worn metal and a very prominent thud that makes very hangar worker in the immediate vicinity wince. The thrusters give one last death rattle of old glory before out entirely, fading with the jagged death-rattle of equipment too long in service and little repaired. A horrible squeal of unoiled hydraulics echoes up towards the ceiling as the cockpit canopy rises, slowly, painfully – not quite masking a muffled grunt of annoyance from within – and the serviceman closest to the craft yelps as the pilot blows the explosive bolts on the canopy's edge, sending the curved piece of transparisteel blasting halfway across the hangar.

A figure unfolds atop the scarred starfighter like a wraith rising from the hellish depths of Kessel, framed by the flickering edge of the still-smoking cockpit as a vengeful monster from its sacrificial pit.

Jedi Master Tamesis Dooku runs two calloused fingers down the singed length of his short steel-grey beard and glares down at the assembled hangar staff, as if challenging them to question his appearance. Servicemen scatter like ants as the sentinel deftly vaults over the edge of his ruined craft; the clack of boot-heels meeting durasteel resounds in the silent hangar like a clap of thunder.

Dooku straightens, somehow appearing regal despite the crimson blood matted in his silver hair, the trails of dirt on his sweat-lined face, and the pronounced favouring of his left foot as he steps forward.

"Hangar master." His voice should have been scratchy with fumes, dry from heat – but it is not. The syllables flow from him with the same air of fluid power that he is famed for in the Order.

The day-shift hangar master elbows his way through the circle of watching technicians. He does not look particularly enthusiastic; but then he had been five minutes away from the end of his shift when the Sentinel had appeared, so perhaps he is not to be faulted. "Yes, Master Dooku?" he murmurs quickly, striped lekku twitching with agitation.

"Inform the Council of my arrival. Do not touch my starfighter until I return." Without bothering to wait for an answer, Dooku pivots on a heel and paces towards the Temple proper.

"Wait!" the hangar master calls after the Sentinel. His eyes slide to the smoking wreck that was once a top-of-the-line Jedi starfighter. "My apologies, Master Dooku, but your craft has landed in a rather difficult spot – this is the intersection for taxiing mid-weight craft, you see, and–"

Dooku's eyes flash in warning as he turns, ragged cloak swirling by his feet. "Not one bolt. That fighter is evidence."

There are a multitude of things the portly Togruta hangar master could have said at this point, but instead he finds himself replying lamely, "Yes, Master Jedi, I'll see to it." With considerable relief, he watches the imposing figure of the Jedi Sentinel stride away towards the hangar exit, down the straight, obstacle-free path that appears before him as by magic – and then he remembers something.

He sprints after the older man. "Master Dooku, hold–"

"Yes?" Impossibly, Dooku's tone smoothens further, until it is obsidian and silk and fluid ice.

"I...I'm afraid the Council can't convene at the moment, sir."

A sly tilt of the head. "Oh? And why is that?"

The hangar master swallows, lekku writhing with discomfort. "There's been an incursion at the Senate building. An extremist group of some sort."

Dooku's hand drops to the curved hilt of the lightsaber at his hip. "Elaborate, if you would."

"Yes. I've been told there are a few apprentices caught up in the incident, sir."

The sentinel's hawk-like gaze narrows sharply. "Indeed? And whom, may I ask?"

"Padawans Muln, Tachi, Kenobi, and..." The white markings on the Togruta's face pale further, as though something has just occurred to him. "...and padawan Tori, sir."

Dooku's head snaps back towards him, sharp as a striking sarlacc. Unable to meet the ice in the Jedi's scrutiny, the hangar master drops his gaze, and swallows when he sees Dooku's knuckles whiten painfully against the 'saber hilt.

"My thanks for your information." The words are quiet. If Dooku's mask had slipped slightly when he heard the last two names, it is as unreadable as ever, now.

The hangar master opens his mouth to say something - for some reason, he feels as though he should – but the hawk-like sentinel has already turned smoothly on one heel and passed towards the Temple, the torn edge of his cloak dripping engine oil onto the spotless floor behind him like the blood of a wounded hunter marks his passage through the forest.

Even when the click-click of the sentinel's boot heels – stuttering slightly every so often from the limp – fades into the corridors beyond, the stains remain, congealing like old blood on the oiled hangar floor.

(:~:)

Ben-Avi.

Ben-Avi Ken–

Ben-Avi Kenobi.

Two little syllables, Obi-Wan wonders. So simple, like another innocent two-syllable word that all the children of the galaxy call one of their parents; a word that Obi-Wan should always have called the man standing before him, if duty and love had not separated them thirteen long years ago. The alarms are still shrieking in his ears, but the hum of the lightsaber in his hand drowns out all else, a pulse carving the air in twain between man and boy, a diagonal gulf of cerulean flame that seems impossible to bridge.

The alarms fall silent so suddenly that Obi-Wan shudders; it is as though his heart has stopped along with them. But no; that desperate drumbeat must be the pounding of his heart in his ears, a beat so fast and panicked that it melds with the low moan of his lightsaber.

Ben-Avi's clear blue eyes flick to Obi-Wan's white-fingered sword hand and back up to his face. Obi-Wan does the same; once, back and forth, white hand to blue eyes. It is strange, he muses, that a face can look so similar to his own and yet be so utterly unreadable. Does Ben-Avi think the same, looking into the features of that which was once his?

Or perhaps they are both not so unreadable after all; mayhap if Qui-Gon were here, he could see the open vulnerability in his apprentice's expression – or if Ben-Avi's wife were present, she would know her husband's hungry hope.

Perhaps it is because they do not know each other, father and son, that they each are alien to the other, as indecipherable as a well-known book translated into a foreign language.

Obi-Wan thumbs the activation switch and powers down his 'saber, and the silent dark swarms into the space where the plasma blade had rested between them, an opaque wall in place of the translucent one a moment before. They stand there for a moment, separated by a half-metre of nothing, and Obi-Wan feels, for once, so utterly relieved that he does not need to speak first, or indeed ever speak at all.

Larger hands find his shoulders, and Obi-Wan wills himself not to stiffen at the sudden touch. He should have sensed Ben-Avi shift, perhaps; but it is only now that he realises his shields tower over the borders of his mind, buttressed by shock. He forces himself to take a long breath, and lower his defenses somewhat.

In fact, his shields drop just enough to sense the genuine worry in Ben-Avi's faint Force-signature as the man stutters, "Are...are you well, Obi-Wan? Are you hurt anywhere?"

A ridiculous question, one Ben-Avi must know the answer to already – but it does not seem strange in any way.

Obi-Wan nods in reply to the first question and shakes his head at the second, so urgently that his neck protests the sudden motion. Ben-Avi cannot possibly have seen the motion in the darkness, but Obi-Wan hears the long exhale of relief from somewhere in front and above him. The breath ruffles his hair, picks up speed, and turns into a gale that rustles the archives of his memories, turning dusty pages of remembrance and aching nostalgia, sweeps the darkness into dusky dawn light and the hissing of their breath to the murmuring of wind through an emerald garden, and strong hands holding his tiny shoulders as he totters forward through the whispering blades of grass–

He blinks, and he is standing in the complete darkness of a senate study again, and the thudding of his heartbeat is a war-drum against the thin wall of his chest.

Belatedly, Obi-Wan realises Ben-Avi's hands are trembling; the grip on his shoulders is so tight that Obi-Wan is shaking with the movement, too. But there is some comfort in the touch; in such complete darkness as this, the hands on his shoulders seem to be a tether to the only other living thing in this chamber.

A speaker crackles its way to life somewhere above them. The clear, professional voice that issues from it seems rather strained. "This is Senate security speaking. There has been an incursion on the lower levels of the building; we have initiated lockdown procedure. We ask that you remain calm, and that all personnel remain where they are; the Jedi Order has been contacted and the incursion should be taken care of shortly. There appears to be a problem with backup lighting in certain areas of the building; rest assured, however, that all life support systems are fully functional. Again, we ask that you stay where you–"

Man and boy flinch in unison as a burst of static explodes through the speaker system, overwhelmed by a high-pitched, mechanical shriek.

Obi-Wan's hand tightens on the 'saber at his hip. That noise had the pronounced staccato scream of plasma bolts, which could only mean–

"Blast it," Ben-Avi whispers. "Those were blaster shots; whoever they are, they must have breached the security centre. They can open or close any door or entrance should they wish, now."

There is a long, dreadful pause, in which the sound system crackles ominously, before a new voice sounds from the speaker: "Greetings. I speak for my brothers and sisters of the Cruorven when I say this: We are very, very happy to be here. I'm sure you will all be wonderful hosts."

Obi-Wan cocks his head to the side, frowning. The voice is not grown. It has the raspy undertone of an immature male, one whose tones have not yet reached the firm timbre of adulthood. And, rather disturbingly, the chuckling giggle of the not-entirely sane.

"Fear not; not all of you will die. However, we must remind all you newly-arrived Jedi filth outside that since the security centre is now under our sole occupation," – muffled screams of victory sound in the background – "we now control all systems and cameras, including the anti-incursion defenses. We can see your every movement outside the building. Any attempt to enter will result in the execution of all those within."

"This is also being broadcasted to the Senate Plaza, then," Ben-Avi mutters.

The person speaking into the public announcement system sounds rather amused. "Oh look, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn seems to be attempting something."

Obi-Wan jerks in surprise at the name, eyes widening – he would have fell had Ben-Avi's hands not steadied him. How do they know Qui-Gon's name?

"This won't do at all…what could we do to make you stop? Ah, yes. Why don't we pick a level and empty it of hostages? We'll even use a more inventive method...ooh, bioactive gas. And it's flammable, too!" The voice continues jovially. "Wasn't that banned by the weapons trading act ten years ago? I'd wager you never knew what anti-incursion defenses the Senate had installed, hmm? Terribly sorry, Master Jinn – even if you do make it in here, there'll be less to save. And to all personnel in the second level, I'll see you in the afterlife."

The sound cuts off in an abrupt click.

A pause.

"Obi-Wan," Ben-Avi says slowly, almost awkwardly – "We're on the second level."

Obi-Wan barely has enough time to process this new revelation before a telltale hiss sounds from the ceiling.

He plunges his hand in his utility belt, snaps open his rebreather, reaches up, and slams it in Ben-Avi's mouth. Obi-Wan hears the faint exclamation of shock, muffled by the hard tubes of the rebreather, but he ignores it, busy searching the other pockets in his belt.

Glowstick...glowstick...where in the Sith-spawned galaxy are his glowsticks? He can almost hear Qui-Gon's exasperated sigh: Padawan, have I not always said you must keep your utility belt in order?

The hiss of gas seems to peak in unison with the need for oxygen in his lungs. He reaches out blindly, only to find Ben-Avi's hand pressing against his own, the rebreather clutched in the larger fingers. Obi-Wan stuffs the rebreather between his lips and allows himself the luxury of two long, deep breaths before shoving the filter back into Ben-Avi's mouth.

There is something terrifying in the serpentine hiss of poison in the air and the thick darkness that presses in on all sides, as though the walls of the room are the borders of a coffin.

Focus on the present.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes; now the darkness is voluntary, controlled. He searches for the panicked beat of his heart and slows it to a crawl to conserve the precious oxygen in his blood.

Now there is nothing to fear.

Obi-Wan fumbles for Ben-Avi's hand, and is somehow unsurprised that their palms fit into each other so easily, as he has noticed Qui-Gon and his hands do, on the rare occasions his master has taken his hand to lead him through a crowd or over difficult terrain. Now that raises a whole another set of questions that Obi-Wan would rather not answer, so he pushes them down and kneels before the blast-shuttered door instead. He feels Ben-Avi crouch beside him, solid and warm as Obi-Wan places his free hand on the chilled surface.

The Force seeps into the metal, mapping the maze of circuitry and mechanical hooks behind two inches of quadanium steel. Obi-Wan furrows his brows in frustration. He has never read a lock system quite so advanced as this; electrical pathways turn back on themselves in paradoxical loops and knots, and the mechanics of the lock itself operate on no less than a half-dozen different planes. With time, perhaps, he could unravel them all; but time is not something they can afford, with one rebreather between the two of them and more gas pouring into the chamber by the second.

His fingers reach for the 'saber at his belt – but no, no, the Cruorven member had said the gas was flammable, had he not? There is movement by his ear as Ben-Avi pushes the rebreather at Obi-Wan's face, and he obediently clamps his teeth over it, sucking in a half breath through the overloaded filters.

The cool length of his stone flute drops out of his sleeve to fall to the floor with a crystalline clatter.

Obi-Wan remembers another time he had crouched before a locked door with no key in hand save for his flute, Arbor industries' laboratories pressing in around him, and the Force had seemed so far away...

It is not easy to press the right note-holes with only one hand, but he uses the single breath he has left to breathe the Force into the flute. Like starlight down a telescope, the Force dances down the grey stone and cascades outwards, magnified a hundredfold.

The resulting pulse smashes the door against the opposite wall of the corridor beyond.

Ben-Avi makes a small, choked noise of surprise that is stifled quickly by the rebreather jammed back into his mouth. And then the smaller hand pulls on the minister's fingers, and he stumbles after Obi-Wan into the cool darkness of the corridor, gas pressing down on them on all sides and no sound save for the muffed noise of boots on the carpet. A single pair of boots, for Obi-Wan's steps are silent.

They run together down the lightless corridor, and if either of them notice the natural synchrony of their feet and the trusting pull of shorter fingers on larger palm, it is lost in the billowing clouds of gas and the relentless burning of their lungs.

(:~:)

Huei presses the side of his head to the door of the auditorium, listening for footsteps in the hallway beyond. At first he hears nothing; the entirety of the first-level concourse is silent. But then a rustle echoes through the metal – movement further down the corridor, perhaps – and he shifts his headtresses, tasting the air for the intruders' scents–

A sobbing whimper shatters his focus the same moment the scent of snot and tears reaches him and makes his sensitive headtails shiver in disgust.

"Will you please stop crying," Huei groans as he fights the urge to slam his forehead against the blast shields.

The obese Twi'lek slumped against the dais only wails louder. His sobs echo jarringly in the cavernous space. "But they're going to come and kill us!"

"Minister Taa," Huei growls through bared teeth, "They will come, whether you sob your fat-laden cheeks out or not. Whether you are killed, however, depends entirely on whether you stay silent long enough for me to get a reading of our surroundings."

Orn Free Taa's corpulent form shudders with sobs, his sagging jowls jiggling with every moan as he squints up at the padawan standing on the highest level of padded seating. If Huei had been able to see the pitiful figure of the Republic Minister of Appropriations in the dim lighting, he would have surely laughed out loud; as it is, the Nautolan padawan is far too annoyed to find humour in the situation. Were it not safer for the minister to remain here, Huei would long have broken out to search for the intruders.

Huei rubs the bridge of his nose as the Twi'lek's mewling sobs reach new heights.

"I'm going to die," Taa whimpers into his 'kerchief. "I'm going to die here in the dark, all alone. I never even had a chance to get married..."

Huei smothers a snort, not even bothering to point out that the fat minister is hardly alone this vast auditorium. "You're not about to be harmed," he breaks in, interrupting what was about to become another round of sobbing. "If they do come blasting through the door, rest assured I'd put a stop to them."

"But...but..." Sob. Whimper. Moan.

"Yes?" Huei hisses. "Do take your time answering, minister. We have so very many joyful hours of waiting ahead of us."

"But you're blind!"

Huei's back straightens sharply.

Orn Free Taa's sobbing subsides to hiccups. He peeks at the young Jedi through his fingers.

Huei stands there for a moment, listening to the hic, hic of hiccups in a fat throat; then he turns and treads down the steps towards the dais, each pace as smooth and silent as a colwar's tread.

"What are you–" the rest of the sentence is bitten off in a shriek as Huei palms both lightsabers and crosses them under the minister's throat. He presses both activation buttons.

Hiss-snap.

Orn Free Taa's tears sizzle in the silence, each vaporised into steam as they run off his cheeks and onto the silver-blue plasma blades a millimetre below his chin.

"I shall be succinct," Huei murmurs quietly. "I came into this project with an open mind. I was prepared to aid you, to respect you, even. You may rest assured that what little respect I had for you has quickly turned to disgust. I may not be able to see you, minister, but I knew precisely where your fat-rolled throat was. If I hadn't, then you would not have a head from which to cry your selfish tears out of."

There is silence as Huei's white-streaked gaze bores sightlessly into the Twi'lek minister's watery eyes. After a moment, Huei becomes aware that the minister is too afraid to move his throat at all, so he barks a laugh and sheathes his blades.

Taa swallows carefully, audibly. "What...what do you want me to do?"

"Shut up, for one." Huei cocks his head, listening. The air stirs in the corridor beyond.

Huei sighs as he strides up the stairs once more. "It appears you have admirers, minister Taa. They're coming for you. Now do you understand? I would have heard them earlier if it weren't for your blubbering."

"But–"

"Shut. Up."

Flourishing both 'sabers, Huei drops into a crouch before the blast-shuttered doors, holding the blades low by his sides. The clanking of armour can been heard clearly now, drawing closer and louder. The sound ceases directly outside the door.

A mechanised voice sounds from the speaker over the door. "Override activated."

As the shutters fold upwards in a cascade of clicking, like a hundred gun-barrels locking into place, Huei gives a chuckle. "Minister, I would advise you to find a corner and make yourself as small as possible." He throws a white-toothed grin over his shoulder as the door itself begins to hiss open. "Though I suppose it would be rather difficult in your case."

Huei hears a whimper in response.

And then blaster-shots ring out through the open portal, and Huei begins his dance.

(:~:)

A solitary figure stands on the wide concourse that leads from the Senate Plaza to the doors of the Senate itself. Night has well and truly descended on Coruscant by now; the infinite lights of the city planet behind him throw his shadow outwards, a thinner spear of black ink that lances forward to meld with the wider chevrons of the shadows casted by the great pillars ahead. The wind whips his mane of greying brown hair past the darker brown of his cloak.

Another figure, slightly shorter, joins the first. He bows, and his silhouetted shadow does the same to its counterpart. Blue eyes meet brown; the newcomer's blond ponytail swings backwards as he straightens.

"Master..."

The first figure speaks. "Any news?"

"The gas is apparently contained on the second level...the building was designed in a series of compartments."

"Hm."

The wind turns the speaker's blond hair into a stinging whip. "Master Windu will not allow any action to be taken as of yet. It would seem there are far too many defense systems in the building that the Senate has deemed the Order did not need to know of. And the blast doors within the actual building appear to be made of liquid Koidite crystals. It's a normal material at first glance, but running a current through it turns the crystals Force-opaque; it is why we cannot communicate with any within." A wry twist of the mouth. "When we asked why, we were told it was 'A precaution against the Sith, should they arise again'."

"Burn them. Burn the Cruorven, whoever they are. Burn Mace."

"I know, Master, I know. You forget my padawan is also within."

A sigh. "I am sorry, my former apprentice."

"No, I should be the one to apologise. I have further news."

"...News I will not like to hear, I take it?"

"Master." The voice hesitates. "Master, I was there when they checked the building's structural plans. I couldn't help seeing that...the Republic Cultural minister's office is on the second level."

"The Repubic Cultural–" There is a sharp, pained intake of breath. "You mean Obi-Wan–"

"Yes."

A long silence, in which the endless cacophony of the planet seems to diminish.

"He has his rebreather. And the gas is not caustic unless it is inhaled. We confirmed it with the suppliers."

"You know how Obi-Wan is, Master." The second voice is apologetic. "If he has a method of escape, he would give it to others first–"

He is cut off by a sharp retort. "No. He is not harmed. Not yet. I would sense it, Koidite crystal notwithstanding."

A pause. "Yes, Master."

The two figures wait on in silence, until they are called away.

(:~:)

Orn Free Taa still weeps silent tears of shock as he follows the young Nautolan Jedi down the first-level concourse. His fat feet slip, and he barely stifles a shriek as he inadvertently nudges one of the masked bodies strewn about the hallway.

"What is it?" The young Jedi's patience appears to be wearing thin.

"You...you killed them," Taa stutters, pressing thick fingers to his pudgy cheeks as he stares down at the remains of the Cruorven patrol. The carpet is marred with scorched arcs, smoking in places where a plasma blade had come too close to the deep-pile synth-fur. The air reeks of charred plastiform and another, more sour scent, one Taa horribly suspects might be burnt flesh.

Huei Tori halts mid-stride and turns his head. "Would you have preferred it if I let them kill you?" His navy crown of headtresses slides aside, revealing the uneven white of an unseeing eye.

Taa gulps and cringes. He does not quite know why, but he somehow finds it hard to meet Tori's opaque gaze – which is ridiculous in itself, because the young Nautolan should not be able to gaze at anything at all.

Huei turns back to the dim length of hallway before him with a careless dip of his chin. Taa nearly collapses with relief, only to flinch violently when that smooth voice speaks again.

"If it would ease your mind, I would have you know I did not kill them all. I aimed only to disarm, save for a few instances in which killing could not be avoided."

"Ah...I...I see," Taa manages, mincing carefully after the young Jedi. "I must say, it was fortunate you were – what are you doing?"

Huei pauses with his hand on the emergency stairwell door. "The security centre is on the uppermost level."

"You...you can't be thinking of retaking it," Taa stammers blankly.

"What were you expecting?"

"Well...there are people for that sort of thing! Security forces and...Jedi...and whatnot."

"You're more blind than I am." Huei smirks as he carefully eases the door open. "In case it has escaped your attention, I am a Jedi."

Taa blinks at him. "But you're supposed to be guarding me! It's your duty as a Jedi!"

"I swore an oath to the Republic, not to you."

The minister watches as Huei's hand emerges from one of the pouches on his belt. There is a sharp click as he flicks open a rebreather.

"The second level is filled with bioactive gas," Huei growls impatiently, when Taa makes a noise that suggests he is about to break the silence. He presses a hand to the stairwell door and frowns. "Force-opaque," he mutters to himself.

Taa dithers beside him, opening and closing his mouth like a dying blobfish. Finally, he blurts, "What do I do?"

"Stay here."

"But–"

Huei cuts across him with a harsh bark of laughter. "Say that word once more, and I will shove your oily headtails down your throat."

There is a whimper, and then silence.

"As you may have noticed, this entire level has been emptied." Huei gestures to the corridor they have just transversed; Taa glances about and realises for the first time that the doors to every room are open, but there is not a soul within them.

"All personnel within this building are now hostages," Huei continues, running webbed fingers over the filters of his rebreather. "I did not sense any life-signatures on this level. It is likely the Cruorven," – the word is a hissed growl – "have moved them to the topmost level, by the security centre. It makes keeping track of them a much easier task." He grasps the edge of the stairwell door and begins to inch it open.

"You can't go up there!" Taa squeals, panicked.

"And why would that be?" Huei murmurs, working the door on its guide rail.

"It's pitch black in there! And there's gas on the second level, and who knows how many intruders, and you're – hey, where are you go– don't leave me!"

But the Nautolan padawan has already disappeared through the doorway, rebreather clamped between his lips.

Orn Free Taa stares at the inky darkness beyond the stairwell, and once more about the body-strewn corridor.

He gulps, fat jowls jiggling as he blinks away fresh tears. "Help."

(:~:)

Obi-Wan halts in the centre of the corridor, eyes stinging. It is difficult to move through the maze of hallways without the aid of clear sight, and the gas makes it difficult to move quickly; sharing a rebreather very much limits what he can do in terms of physical exertion.

He feels the air move against his skin, the most minute of currents whisper-touching the hair on his arm. Abruptly, he drops to one knee and presseas his free hand to the -Avi makes a sound of surprise as he is dragged down with him.

Warily, Obi-Wan lets the Force pulse outwards from his palm.

When the pulse returns, it has ricocheted off no less than a dozen sentient beings.

Moving as quickly as he dares, Obi-Wan leads Ben-Avi to the nearest wall, feeling along it until he finds an alcove of some sort. There they sink, huddled beside one another. Obi-Wan accepts the rebreather when it is handed to him and draws a breath of hot air, feeling his lungs protest the continued lack of clean oxygen. Obi-Wan's hand is still in Ben-Avi's, but that is the extent of their communication. He closes his eyes against the dark and bemoans the lack of a Force-connection; there is little he can do to warn Ben-Avi of the group ahead.

A muted glow appears further down the corridor. The dirty green light seems to seep through the billowing clouds of gas, like a mass of filthy worms slithering ever closer.

A tug on his tunic sleeve; Obi-Wan glances up to meet Ben-Avi's worried gaze. The phosphorescent gleam is now bright enough to just barely line both their faces, smoothing lines and blurring edges, giving one face age and another youth. For a moment, it is as though they both peer into a time-misted mirror; Ben-Avi stares at the image of himself, two decades younger, while Obi-Wan watches, wide-eyed, wondering if this will be his face when others call him master–

The scummy light crawls over them, slimy and chilled, carving age-lines at the corners of Ben-Avi's eyes and flickering over the youthful curve of Obi-Wan's cheek. And abruptly, a dozen figures materialise out of the clouds of gas; a variety of species, masked and bristling with vibroshivs, vibroaxes, viciously curved blades. The emblem of a howling sarlacc are emblazoned across their chests, inky black in the green light.

Obi-Wan forces as much filtered air into his lungs as he can bear; his chest feels tight with pressure. Even as the first shout rings out from the masked intruders, he has already thrust the rebreather back into Ben-Avi's hands and vaulted forward, snapping out a kick against the wrist of the first assailant, a slender Twi'Lek brandishing a vibroblade.

He feels the fragile bones in the Twi'lek's wrist shatter at the same moment a discordant scream echoes through the filters of the gas mask, magnified horribly by the circular breathing tubes. Obi-Wan glimpses a pair of shocked, agonised, and so very young eyes through the mask's wide viewing window before his first target crumples under the pain, glowstick falling out of his nerveless fingers to smash against the floor.

As he ducks under a vibroshiv to plunge an elbow into the next intruder's stomach, Obi-Wan hears a screamed order from one of the flailing bodies in the fray around him, and his heart leaps into his throat.

That voice had not the deep baritone of an adult male – no, it had the thin, reedy and unsettled quality of an early adolescent male human.

Sith-spawned stars. Obi-Wan is a child fighting children – or at least youths only a few years older than him.

The realisation makes him tone down his next assault – his knee cracks into the viewing window of the next mask that looms out of the gaseous clouds, but not nearly hard enough. He hears a shriek from the mask's bearer – a girl, he realises belatedly – but half-stunned as she is, she still manages a wild swing towards him as he lands badly, having pulled his attack in mid-air to avoid permanently harming her.

He hears a muffled yell from behind him as the girl's dagger bites into his raised hand, and somewhere in his muddled mind he registers that Ben-Avi had shouted his name. The shock from the sudden pain nearly makes him open his mouth to gasp a breath; it takes all his self-control to clamp his lips shut and half-fall backwards instead, catching with his uninjured hand the rebreather that Ben-Avi throws at him.

Gulping filtered air like a drowning man, Obi-Wan straightens and throws himself at his four remaining opponents. Another glowstick clatters to the ground, and he does not hesitate in smashing it open with a boot heel. Phosphorescent liquid splashes onto the carpet and is quickly absorbed by the thick fibres, the grimy green glow fading as the chemicals diffuse into the synth-fur.

Something glimmers on the edge of his Force-awareness, as though a small comet streaks over the horizon, trailing pennants of silver and navy blue as it darts towards the skirmish like a hunting dervish.

Obi-Wan smiles past the tubes of his rebreather. The assailant closest to him jerks back in surprise, sudden fear dancing across his eyes at the young Jedi's fearsome grin. Taking advantage of the distraction, Obi-Wan deftly flicks the last two remaining glowsticks out of their bearers' hands with a tendril of the Force and smashes them against the floor.

And then he ducks back down next to Ben-Avi, and waits.

(:~:)

The four Cruorven straighten in the sudden stillness, confused. They stand back-to-back in complete darkness, now; the final thing they had seen as the light of their last smashed glowsticks faded away was the young human Jedi dropping back into an alcove. Now the gas has settled, but there is still no movement in the dark.

Something whispers over the carpet, like the rustle of wind over sand; the merest trace of a breeze touches their necks.

"Hey," gulps one of the four. The metal filters of his gas mask disembodies his voice. "Maybe we should–" A snapping crack scythes through his words, followed by the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the ground a half-second later.

A shrieking howl is torn from one of their throats a moment later – one that draws twin screams from the last two Cruorven as their comrade flails in the darkness, swiping desperately at something he cannot see.

Crunch.

The two Cruorven stand there, frozen, listening hard; but there is no sound save for their panicked, sawing breaths.

"I can't see anything!" one sobs.

A cold chuckle rings out from above and behind them, hissed through tubular filters and laced with dark humour:

"I can't, either."

There is a whistling sound as something flies towards them, and a sudden impact; then, nothing.

(:~:)

Ezhno faces the flashing wall of monitors and tries not to scream with frustration.

Behind him, nearly every staff member in the Temple communication centre stand facing the opposite direction, huddled around the single screen where a live feed of the Senate grounds streams directly from the holonet. The volume must be maxed out – Ezhno feels the thudding vibrations through the table under his fingers – but he does not turn around.

He is – for want of a better word – as pissed as an irritated colwar.

A pinprick of green light blinks at the corner of his vision. With a none-too-gentle snap of the wrist, he keys open a comm channel. "Communications cen're," he growls shortly, eyes flicking over the text flashing on the screen before him. "Yes. Yeh, I – this stinkin' machine translates too blasted fast – wait, wot? No, Master-wotever-yer-hutt-spawned-name-is. I can't move ye up the soddin' re-entry queue, there ent enough people available ter sort it out. Don'tcha padawan me, I ent no padawan fer yer te be padawan'in about. Oh, look – the text's turnin' bolded capitals and all. Are ye yellin' at me? Tough luck, I'm deaf."

He smashes a button and cuts off the channel.

The holonet reporter on the screen behind him must be very agitated indeed. Ezhno's orange-skinned hands are clenched on the metal console, but the vibrations from each disembodied word are rolling up his wrists, sharp in his shoulders, making his whole body shake.

Garen. Huei. Obi-Wan.

There are at least eight more incoming comm signals he has yet to answer, but Ezhno leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. If he can forget about the mess going on behind him, forget about all of this – then maybe he can make himself forget, even for a moment, that three of his closest friends could possibly be dead.

Well, victim is probably a better word for Huei. But Ezhno likes to think they have a friendship of sorts, in between all the one-sided pranking and annoying.

When Ezhno opens his eyes again, his vision is blurred by a traitorous layer of moisture. He dashes it away with an angry hand and blinks at the console again, reaching for the comm channel switch–

The metal shivers under his fingers as the communications unit shuts down, the green hologram screen sucking itself back into its projection port while the thrum of working machinery stills.

"Wot...?" Ezhno flicks a few switches experimentally; when nothing happens, he hops off his seat and aims a few choice kicks at the metal plating.

"Oi, my console's gone an' murdered itself," he calls to the throng behind him. Rather expectedly, nobody answers; he turns back to the silent machine with a scowl.

The hologram screen suddenly unfolds from its projector again, opening like a green-lit flower; but its surface only crackles with static.

"Come on, now," Ezhno mutters as he slides back into his seat, long fingers dancing over the keys. "Reboot. Gimme somethin' other than blasted static, for one thing."

There is a blip across the screen, an image flashing in a brighter green. Ezhno squints as it disappears.

And then the whole machine hums under his fingers as the console reboots, dozens of incoming comm calls clamouring for his attention. Even as he reaches towards the rows of controls, Ezhno frowns. In the instant the screen flickered, he could have sworn that he had seen a symbol of a sarlacc against a darker background. But what could it mean?

But then a line of translated comm-text rolls across his screen, bolded, all-caps, littered with snarls; and Ezhno sighs and returns to his work.

(:~:)

The lights of the third-level concourse blink sporadically, spawning morphing shadows in the dusky hallways adjacent. In one of these narrower corridors movement disturbs the still air, sending a triangle of inky shadow swinging across the white stone floors.

Obi-Wan carefully eases the door open further before slinking into the flickering pool of ink cast by the entryway. In the gloom, his eyes are two white-blue points that skim back and forth once, twice, flick-flick. Cautiously, he edges into the grey half-light and checks the toximeter on his belt. Only when the tiny light flashes green does he remove the rebreather from between his lips and motion with a grimy hand.

At the signal, two more figures steal into the corridor, filling the confined space with the echo of harsh breaths. Almost immediately, the sound quietens as Huei braces himself against a wall, sucking in long, slow breaths of clean air. His fists quake with the effort of muting his breathing; he can only muster the energy to nod wordlessly when Obi-Wan claps a hand on his shoulder in thanks and returns the Nautolan padawan's rebreather. Ben-Avi appears far worse; he drops onto his knees between the two padawans, face shadowed, and barely responds when Obi-Wan stoops to remove the rebreather from his slack fingers.

After an indeterminable period, Huei straightens and chuckles, "What would you do without me, Kenobi?"

Obi-Wan glances up from where he is crouched at Ben-Avi's side, two fingers pressed to the minister's wrist to measure the throbbing pulse within. The minister's breathing had been evening out, but it hitches audibly at Huei's words. Obi-Wan's fingers twitch.

Huei's white eyes narrow, and he tilts his head as though searching for clearer sounds.

A huff of annoyance issues from Obi-Wan's lips as he abruptly stands. He stalks over to his fellow padawan and taps Huei's arm eight times, none too gently.

The corner of Huei's lips quirks sardonically. "So you took down eight of them. I dispatched four, and I arrived late."

There is a thud of fist meeting shoulder, and a quiet "Ow!" followed quickly by hissed retaliation: "That hurt, Kenobi. It's not my fault the politician assigned to me is snivelling coward! Youseem to have got a half-decent one at any rate – he hasn't suffocated yet, anyhow."

"Hello," Ben-Avi breaks in, softly.

Both padawans' heads snap towards the speaker, sending headtails and braid swinging. Obi-Wan's back is suddenly ramrod straight; he stares determinedly over Ben-Avi's shoulder.

Huei pauses, sensing the change in atmosphere.

Ben-Avi climbs to his feet with a surprisingly smooth motion. "You have my thanks for aiding us."

There are rules for such a situation, no matter the strange circumstances. Huei bows deeply towards Ben-Avi's general direction. "My apologies," he murmurs. "You are very welcome, sir. I am Padawan Huei Tori. You will have to excuse my not meeting your eyes; my sight was taken from me on previous mission."

"Ben-Avi, newly-appointed Republic Minister of culture and arts." Ben-Avi spares a glance at Obi-Wan's averted eyes and breathes a sigh before turning back to Huei. "Again, I owe you my gratitude for saving mine and my s– that is," he stumbles, "Padawan Kenobi's– lives."

Obi-Wan blinks once, the first interruption to his unbroken stare at the opposite wall. When his gaze steadies once more, his eyes are rather more moist than usual.

"We come to serve," Huei intones. There is a glimmer of surprise on his features; Ben-Avi had not asked about his loss of sight. "Are you well, Minister Avi?"

"Ah..." Ben-Avi shifts; his boots scrape against the floor. "Ben-Avi is my first name. You may address me as such, if you wish."

"I see." Huei's expression is unreadable. "Then your family name would be...?"

Obi-Wan actually flinches. As though he were connected to the Jedi by invisible strings, Ben-Avi does the same. The rustle of Jedi tunics and thick silk surcoat grate together into a single dissonant chord.

Huei stiffens. His webbed fingers inch towards the 'saber at his belt.

"My family name," Ben-Avi says quietly, "is Kenobi."

"Minister Ken–" Huei stops short. "Then you–?"

"Yes."

Obi-Wan abruptly raises his hood. The heavy cowl drops over his head, as heavy as the weight of the single word Ben-Avi had just uttered.

Ben-Avi opens his mouth, closes it, and then rubs a hand over his face, as though he has just become aware he that he has just confirmed the whole thing, opened an irreversible gate – though none of them had explicitly stated what the whole thing is in the first place.

Huei bows once more, fluidly, emotionlessly. "I am sorry. I should not have pried." When he straightens again, he turns to the other boy beside him, and Ben-Avi catches a flash of something – perhaps worry, or pity, or determination – flicker across the young Nautolan's face.

"We should go, Kenobi," Huei whispers, almost gently.

The rim of the dark russet hood dips once in a nod. Without another word to Ben-Avi, Huei feels for his companion's shoulder and steers him firmly down the corridor.

Ben-Avi raises a hand at their retreating backs, as though he is about to speak; then he lowers his arm and follows wordlessly.

There is nothing to be said.

Chapter Text

Siri Tachi crouches silently in place. Her cloak pools around her small form like a protective tent; with her cowl drawn over her silver-gold hair, she is barely discernable from the gloom cast by the flickering emergency lights. The Force flows over and around and under her feet with barely a pause; she has melded into the riverbed as a pebble in the stream, and the Light warps around her smoothly, as though she has always been there; invisible, unnoticed.

But the whimpering is beginning to get on her nerves.

The crowd of a hundred or so senators, aides, admin personnel, and assorted senatorial staff are gathered around in one tightly-packed group; some sitting, some crouched, some kneeling, sobbing quietly, and all crammed into the dark corridor right before the Senate security centre. Siri resists the urge to reach up and rub her aching temples. The air is beginning to get slightly stale, and being enveloped in such a large huddle of people only serves to make everything about the situation more uncomfortable.

"Are you quite all right, my dear?"

Startled, Siri snaps her head to her left to stare blankly at Senator Palpatine.

The Nabooian senator tilts his head gently in her direction, offering a grandfatherly smile of concern. His hands are folded neatly in this lap, and his senatorial robes pool onto the floor like heavy, half-dried ink. He smiles again, all warm, selfless desire to help. "Padawan Tachi? I understand the situation must be rather frightening…I must admit, my dear, I had no inkling that our working partnership would begin in such an…unexpected manner."

A little taken aback at the form of address – not even the most matronly of clan mistresses had ever called her my dear – Siri whispers tightly, "Senator, I appreciate your concern on my behalf, but I am a Jedi. If anything, I should be more concerned for the safety of the civilians gathered here. But I must ask, Senator, for your silence. It would be within our best interests if my presence here were kept quiet."

Palpatine nods, all affable understanding – but then he speaks again, voice lowered carefully. "Of course. Do you intend to act?"

"Only should the Force prompt me to do so." Truth be told, it is all a little daunting; a thirteen-year old Jedi padawan might be wise beyond others her age, but it remains that there are at least twenty armed sentients of various races just beyond the closed blast doors of the security centre, and more behind the end of the corridor to the rest of the building beyond.

Surprisingly, Palpatine seems to accept the statement, as vague as it must seem to someone without connection to the Force. "Understood. I have complete faith in your abilities, Padawan Tachi."

Done speaking, the senator turns away to comfort a pale-faced Twi'Lek aide next to him.

Slightly relieved for the silence, Siri's sinks into the Force again, blocking out the frightened murmurs of the crowd around her to feel for the opportunity that surely must come.

A sharp intake of breath next to her.

Siri's hand tightens on the recently-constructed 'saber at her hip; she would have sprung into action instantly were it not for the sudden realisation that the sound had come from Senator Palpatine.

"Sir?" she ventures, sliding a little closer to him.

Palpatine turns to her, eyes, wide with sorrow. "My dear…"

She fights against her annoyance at the re-emergence of that term. "What is it?"

"I have just come to the most distressing of realisations… you quite clearly heard along with the rest of us that the – what was it? Cruorven, I believe they called themselves – released bioactive gas to the second level?"

Siri blinks up at him. "Yes."

"I'm afraid, Padawan Tachi, one of your friends was most likely on that level. The one assigned to the new cultural minister – Padawan Kenobi."

Siri freezes in place. The lights dim even further; the corridor seems a mass of cloaked and cowering shapes.

Palaptine's face is thrown into shadow, his wrinkles deepening to unknown abysses. "My dear?"

"Could you–" Siri nearly raises her voice above a whisper, but almost immediately regains control. "I'm sorry, senator, but I would prefer it if you could use my formal title. The sentiment is appreciated, but I am not your granddaughter."

Palpatine is all embarrassed contriteness. "Oh! Oh, of course."

"…I apologise for my outburst."

"No, with the upsetting news you just received, I hardly think it abnormal."

Siri frowns for a moment, blonde eyebrows furrowing. "Senator, truthfully, I…I do not know what to feel. Padawan Kenobi and I are hardly the best of friends, and our Code teaches us to give equal sorrow to the death of anyone, no matter stranger or friend. You need not fear for sorrow or grief on my part. We do not know if Padawan Kenobi truly perished. Many masters would advise to focus on the present moment, and leave future matters to when they are certain."

For a moment, it seems as though Palpatine is about to reply; but then screams erupt from the front of the group, and the blast doors slide open to admit a small cluster of Cruorven.

As the first armed figure begins to speak, Siri wills the Force to pump blood into her cramp-stiffened joints and waits for the opportune moment to strike.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan carefully holds back his braid and edges his head around the corner, scouting the next corridor down. Dried sweat and other less pleasant liquids have long since matted his spiky hair into filthy strands. The two floors from the third-level concourse had been reclaimed relatively quickly; there had been far fewer Cruorven patrols to ferret out than expected.

Perhaps they thought the second-level bioactive gas would buffer anyone attempting to ascend, Obi-Wan muses as he squints down the dim, airless corridor. With the Senate sealed in completely, the 'cycler systems appear to be working on bare minimum, leaving the air heavy and stale.

A hissed word behind him. "Obi."

Fighting a sigh, Obi-Wan retreats back behind the corner and turns to give Garen Muln a pointed stare.

Garen makes a bug-eyed, what-do-you-want-me-to-do expression. "Obi, I need some explanation here. You can't just tell me that man over there is your fath– okay, fine, relation – without further information." He skips over the seemingly taboo word with a hiccup in his whispering, disbelief raising the pitch of his words.

Obi-Wan doesn't bother reaching for his flimsy – he simply narrows his eyes and jabs a finger at the floor.

A little further behind them, Huei Tori's grin is a flash of white in his dark blue face, barely discernable from the shadows where he stands in quiet, tactical conference with Ben-Avi and Garen's assigned senatorial official, Mon Mothma. The Chandrillian senator is a picture of serene determination; only a slight graze above her temple and the streaks of filth along her cream robes belie her part in aiding the three padawans in their advance up the levels.

"Come on, man." Garen moans, bringing Obi-Wan's attention back to him. "I know the current situation is a bit difficult – I can't believe my luck in running into you and Tori, for one thing – but I mean…how do you feel about all this?" There is a note of genuine fear in his voice, not quite masked by the nagging, jovial tone – this is too unfamiliar a territory for either of them, a place too far from the comfort of not knowing the things which might lead to emotion, to memory, to…feelings.

Jedi have so very few things that are truly personal.

Obi-Wan's gaze slides from Garen's pinched face to Huei Tori to his own blurred reflection in the polished metal wall. He knows not what to feel.

Here they are, three fourteen-year old boys, with no knowledge of family, history, homeworld, or culture – with nothing to remember of their own origins save for their own names.

And it had all started with a name, after all.

Kenobi.House of Kenobi. But no, that had been a Stewjon songbird embroidered on Ben-Avi's frock-coat, so… Stewardship of Terajon. House of Kenobi, Stewardship of Terajon. History and…home?

Obi-Wan suddenly finds it hard to breathe.

A hand on his shoulder shocks him out of it.

Huei tightens his grip. "Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan stares up at his slightly taller friend, and manages a flare of acknowledgement in the Force.

Huei's hand remains on Obi-Wan's shoulder a moment longer than it strictly necessary – meaning, of course, that he is not fooled in the least by his friend's deception.

"Hmm." If Huei had eyebrows, they would be very, very high on his forehead. As such, his lips thin into a line, presenting a rather intimidating visage. "Later, Kenobi," he warns, before raising his voice slightly to include Garen in the conversation.

"According to Senator Mothma, we are standing some ways above the top of the Senate Chamber and presently only two corridors from the security centre. I smell a large group of sentients a short distance away." His head-tresses undulate for a moment, tasting the air. His frown deepens. "By the amount of sweat and fear rolling off of them, I suspect the hostages are hemmed in on two sides by guards."

Garen glances at Obi-Wan. "Plan?"

Obi-Wan twirls a finger in a circle between himself and the two others, and jabs a thumb in the direction of the security centre.

"Just the three of us?" Garen asks. "What about the minister and senator?"

Obi-Wan takes a half-step toward Ben-Avi and Mothma, but he catches himself. Uncertainty spills into the Force.

Sensing the delicacy of the situation, Huei turns smoothly and strides towards the two adults, who had been watching the padawans' murmured conversation with equally grim expressions on their faces.

"Senator. Minister." Huei bows. "We have decided that as neither of you have combat experience, it is best you remain here. Kenobi, Muln, and I will take the Security Centre."

Ben-Avi shifts, in a motion too similar to Obi-Wan's just a few moments before. But he, too, halts in his tracks, swallowing. Mon Mothma, perceptive, pretends not to notice and moves forward to speak to Huei and Garen. Obi-Wan slips away from the small group and quietly approaches Ben-Avi.

They stand together quietly for a long while before Obi-Wan musters the courage to look up.

Blue meets blue, as converging tides swirl against one another. Obi-Wan bites his lip – hadn't Qui-Gon stopped that habit long ago? – and reaches into his sleeve.

He places his grey stone flute and river rock into Ben-Avi's wide, ink-stained hands – a writer's hands, a cultural minister's hands – and feels the man shudder as Obi-Wan's sword-calluses brush over Ben-Avi's unmarked palms.

They are both utterly aware that it should be the other way round, the older with callouses and the younger without.

But then Obi-Wan is bowing, and Ben-Avi's fingers close around the flute and stone an instant too late to grasp Obi-Wan's fingers as the young Jedi turns away, a barely-discernable blush on his cheeks…

Mon Mothma inclines her head. "Our hearts are with you. Please take care, young Jedi."

Three padawan braids disappear around the corner, two of hair and one of silka beads.

Ben-Avi stares down at the items grasped in his fingers, and wishes, selfishly, above anything, that rather than flute and stone he holds smaller, weapon-calloused hands instead.

(:~:)

In the cold Coruscanti evening, the Senate square is lit with harsh white brightness of bank upon bank of industrial spotlights, each sending huge, rectangular beams of coherent light that lance against the huge dome, reflecting off the shimmering blue ray-shield that encases the whole building like a second skin. Holonet news-cams hover thickly above and around the authorities' prohibited zone, forming a second, far larger dome around and over the senate district.

Halfway down the parade grounds, Qui-Gon Jinn sits on a hard field-chair next to the Jedi command tent, a cup of cold, untouched tea next to his feet. He has barely moved in the two hours since the initial Cruorven broadcast; the few republic servicemen who were fortunate enough not to startle badly upon realising the Jedi Master's presence there were all driven away by swift, glacial glares.

The tent flap rustles as it is pushed open. A deep chuckle to Qui-Gon's right. "Continue the way you are, Qui, and you might frighten away all our supporting officers."

Qui-Gon turns his ice-fire gaze onto the Jedi beside him. The Coruscanti policeman standing guard next to the tent opposite nearly wilts in relief.

"Mace," Qui-Gon acknowledges, biting off the end of the syllable in a truncated hiss.

"I'm worried for you, my friend." Mace Windu's clear brown eyes are shadowed with grim weight.

"The sentiment is appreciated."

"Sarcasm was never your forté."

"And sentiment was never yours."

The Korun Jedi's eyes narrow dangerously. "No. That would be your speciality."

The air snaps between them like a lightsaber from its hilt; the absence of an actual plasma blade does not lessen the heat in the atmosphere or the thrum of ferocity in their ears.

And then the Force shudders, and a cry goes up around them.

Both Jedi are on their feet in an instant, striding forward to crane their necks upward at the side of the Senate Building. Holoprojectors cascade out of a hidden recess in the roof's edge, forming a huge screen that hangs down from the lip of the Senate dome like a liquid wall of light.

A masked form steps into the shot, visible from waist-up. Behind the figure, the collective hostages huddle together down the length of the corridor, staring up at the camera with fearful anticipation.

As the person begins to speak, the Force seems to trickle through the spaces between the hovering holo-newscams above the Senate square, sloshing around the feet of the people gathered there, rising, rising, like a flood behind a dam waiting to be released…

"Masters, did you sense–" Feemor Ner'iah dashes out of the command tent like an akk on a scent, followed closely by Kit Fisto, and Masters Clee Rhara and Adi Gallia.

"Yes," Qui-Gon breathes. "We did."

(:~:)

Obi-Wan, Garen and Huei lower the unconscious Cruorven guards to the floor and each place a hand on the blast panel that separates them from the passageway to the security centre beyond.

Holding his friends' gazes, Obi-Wan raises three fingers.

Three.

(:~:)

Keeping her head down, Siri blocks out the drivel the Cruorven speaker is spewing and tightens her sword hand around her 'saber.

The Force tremors, as the gears of clock do just before the hour is struck, and whispers in her ear:

Two.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon sucks in his next breath with a piercing hiss, a hitch in his breathing mirrored by the four Jedi Masters behind him.

One.

Up on that giant hanging screen, there is an explosion of light behind the Cruorven speaker; his words are cut off in a mechanical scream of overloaded sound system, sending the disembodied sound scything across the Senate Square. The shriek is so violently sudden that every sentient with auditory receptors on the parade grounds flinches in pain.

The Jedi don't.

Already, Knights and Masters are pouring out of the reserve shelters to halt up in neat lines behind the command tent. Mace Windu holds up a hand, palm spread. Wait.

The scream of the Cruorven speaker finally fades, having looped a few hundred times through a feedback loop in the Senate sound system. The screen is a mess of flashing light and flickering shapes; and above the cries of the civilian hostages and the ugly, spitting sound of Cruorven blasters, there rises now the unmistakable, echoing howl of multiple lightsabers in a confined space, magnified horribly by the speakers fitted on the grounds.

Not a word is spoken on the parade ground; the sounds from the security centre are more than enough to render the air too thick for speech, too heavy with portent and too choked to breathe.

Qui-Gon fixes his gaze on the live feed of the security centre, wishing he could reach inside those Force-opaque walls to guide his apprentice, to comfort the civilians, so he could…so he could know what is happening, utterly and completely, without this grey veil between him and Obi-Wan.

"Behind you, Keno–"

The shout reverberates across a hundred speakers, but the echo cuts off the sentence before it finishes. Qui-Gon feels Mace's glance burn the back of his neck in a swift stroke of understanding and pity.

Qui-Gon closes his eyes and sinks into the Force.

Nothing. He senses nothing.

And then abruptly, he realizes he hears nothing, too.

He snaps his head up.

The screen only shows a rectangle of white smoke. There are a few long moments where there is nothing at all to be seen.

But then a hand appears; a young, dirty human hand, gesturing. The smoke seems to move away from the camera on its own accord , revealing wrist, then tunic sleeve, then shoulder and padawan braid, and clear, triumphant blue eyes–

–and then Obi-Wan Kenobi flicks his wrist, and the smoke flies back from the camera, revealing Siri Tachi, Garen Muln, and Huei Tori standing just behind him. The tendrils of mist retreat further, allowing groups of huddled Senators, Aides, and other officials to emerge, coughing, in a corridor streaked with blaster marks but miraculously free of blood.

Twelve Cruorven lie in crumpled heaps, scattered around the feet of Padawans and civilians alike. All are unconscious, but breathing.

Obi-Wan inclines his grime-streaked head and presses a button somewhere to the left of the camera. With a whoosh of compressed air, the ray-shield generators deactivate and slide back into their recessed notches, leaving the building free and without barrier. The huge larmalstone doors that lead into the first level entryway grind open.

Mace Windu shouts an order, and the ranked Jedi behind him sprint forward, half streaming through the gaping doors, and half leaping for the bare sides of the building, scaling the walls towards the domed roof.

And Qui-Gon remembers to breathe, and that he has tasks he has to do other than staring at the image of his filthy, triumphant, and very much alive padawan.

A voice. "Master?"

Qui-Gon turns to Feemor, who still stands at his side, watching him.

"Feemor?" The words leave his mouth in a croak.

"Yes?"

Qui-Gon raises his chin again to look up at the live feed into the security centre. "I…I…thank the Force."

The wind whips Feemor's blond hair into a stream of gold, but his smile is warm. "Yes, Qui–"

But the lithe Jedi Master is already gone, racing after the dozens of Jedi climbing the building.

"As I recall from the days of my apprenticeship, patience was his favourite word." Feemor grumbles to himself.

A rich rumble of laughter beside him. "You might want to follow the old gundark."

"Master Windu?" Feemor glances at the head of the Council, surprised.

The Korun Jedi shades his eyes from the bright spotlights of the descending holonet cams, and gestures with his free hand. "We're sending in the rescue teams from the top. The second level needs to be cleared of gas before we can send anyone through that way, but that's for those ground-level personnel to handle. It seems we must evacuate from the roof."

Feemor nods and bows, but before he can reply, a new voice rings out onto the parade grounds.

"Citizens of the Republic." This new voice is aged, but does not waver. The words flow smoothly, like aged wine, with wisdom and gentleness.

Feemor squints up at the giant image of Senator Palpatine, and frowns. "Where's Chancellor Valorum?"

"A very good question," Windu murmurs, so deep that the words are almost unintelligible.

"Citizens of the Republic," Palpatine says, once more. "I am Sheev Palpatine, Senator to Naboo. We the Senatorial officials and staff have escaped grave injury today against impossible odds, a fact which we are indebted to four very courageous young Jedi."

After surviving an incursion, occupation and subsequent battle for reclamation, the holo-cam built into the security centre is not operating at the best quality; however, the light receptors function well enough capture the exact expressions of surprise on each of the padawans' faces as Palpatine pulls them forward into the shot, never ceasing in his praise.

One of the tiny climbing figures halts next to the giant screen and hangs there with one hand free, russet cloak fluttering madly in the wind.

"Qui-Gon shares my opinion on this matter, I see," Windu growls.

"Master?" Feemor inquires.

"As much as the Order appreciates Senator Palpatine's support, I do wonder if he is doing it out of gratitude, or…"

"Or?"

"Or for this." The Jedi Master waves his hand at the swarming mass of holo-news-cams above.

Palpatine speaks on, and the hovering holo-cams feast on his every word, drinking, drinking in him and the four young, unknown padawans who will soon no longer be so, pasting their faces across every holo-screen and datapad display across the galaxy.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan grasps the last rung of the durasteel ladder and climbs up through the service hatch onto the roof of the Senate dome. Ben-Avi emerges behind him. The fierce luminance of the spotlights edges the thick embroidery on his frock-cat with dark blue shadow.

Here, at its peak, the dome flattens for a short distance before sloping gently down towards its edges. The wind whips around them, bringing fresh vigor to lungs hungry from stale air. Questing fingers of air attempt to peel Obi-Wan's boots from the slick metal surface, but he bats aside the wind with a hand and pivots on the spot, searching the waves of Jedi that haul themselves over the rooftop, cloak after cloak, tunic after tunic, with only their faces and the 'sabers that hang at their belts to differentiate them–

A swirl of russet at the periphery of his vision; wide shoulders, worn tunics, the 'saber he knows most aside from his own hanging on a faded leather utility belt, a glorious, familiar awareness in his mind, Master-

And then Qui-Gon is there, crouching on one knee to bring their faces level, one broad hand brushing away the grime on Obi-Wan's cheekbone, the other checking him over for damage.

Obi-Wan frowns at the top of his master's head; Qui-Gon seems too occupied with his examination to meet his eyes directly.

"Injuries?" Qui-Gon's voice is almost a growl. Long fingers hover over a blaster singe on a sleeve.

Obi-Wan shakes his head.

"Gas?"

Smaller hands tap the rebreather still firmly attached to utility belt.

All he receives is a grunt in response. Obi-Wan nearly gives a silent yep as his master grasps his chin and tilts his gaze upwards.

Blue eyes meet blue. One pair confused, one pair an incomprehensible maelstrom.

A pause.

"No concussion," Qui-Gon sighs. Both his hands are grasping his padawan's face, now, thumbs on cheekbones, fingers buried in knotted, golden-brown hair. The maelstrom recedes, becomes a languid pool of relief.

Obi-Wan stands there, held in place by Qui-Gon's warm hands, by the bond thrumming so very close between them, tethered at last like a coracle to the shore of the island at which it was wrought.

Qui-Gon's lips had been drawn tight in a line, but now the corner of his mouth softens and twitches. If he pauses, it is only because he chooses his words with care and pride. "Padawan, that was very well done." He is smiling now, truly smiling, and Obi-Wan finds himself grinning in return. "So very well done, my young, brilliant, and very worthy apprentice."

Well done.

Obi-Wan remembers, for a moment, the whir of azure blade in billowing clouds of gas, of the screams of the Cruorven as the blade passed through them, of the crunch of gas mask against bone, of the screams of others not so much older than himself – and his smile slips, just slightly.

Qui-Gon doesn't miss it.

"We will debrief once we are home," he promises, taking control. "And only when we are sure you are ready," he adds, slowing the frozen ice that rises in Obi-Wan's expression.

The Jedi master stands, grasps his padawan's shoulder with a steadying hand, turns, and–

–finds himself meeting a pair of sea-blue eyes that he could have sworn belonged to the apprentice standing beside him.

The two men stare at each other for a long, long minute, eerily similar, both with intelligent blue eyes, long, greying brown hair tied back, and the same hard quality about both their mouths, like Asharl panthers gnawing at their gums before going in for the kill.

Obi-Wan looks from one man to the other, back and forth, before deciding to focus on a point in the middle distance somewhere between the two.

Qui-Gon is the first to stir. "Minister Kenobi," he says smoothly, bending fluidly at the waist. He does not remove his hand from his apprentice's shoulder; Obi-Wan is forced to bow with him. "I am Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn. Obi-Wan is my padawan learner."

Ben-Avi returns his bow elegantly, with a hint of flair in his high-collared frock-coat and an air of nobility that matches the silver embroidery of the Stewjon Songbird on his left chest. "I'm honoured."

Another pause. If this was year and a half ago, in the early days of his apprenticeship, Obi-Wan might have squirmed from the awkwardness. He does not now, but what could be affecting his master's usually impeccable diplomacy, Obi-Wan does not know.

Qui-Gon breaks the silence. "You have my thanks for remaining at my padawan's side today." There is real gratitude in his voice, a change from his previous smooth civility.

"No, the thanks is all mine to give," Ben-Avi says quietly. "Without that rebreather and Obi-Wan's," – he swallows once – "Obi-Wan's quick thinking, I would not have survived the first five minutes of the incursion."

"We come to serve." Qui-Gon bows, causing his apprentice the same difficulty as before. "If you will excuse us, we must return to the Temple."

Obi-Wan finds himself steered away by the hand that had been on his shoulder for the entire length of the fragmented conversation. Before he can even communicate his protest through the bond, Qui-Gon has already linked their belts with a standard-issue karabiner and fixed the hook of his rappel gun around an air vent.

The last thing Obi-Wan sees before he drops off the edge of the roof is Ben-Avi suddenly rising from his stupor and taking a single step towards them, arm outstretched and a word on his lips.

The wind tosses the syllables into oblivion, but he sees Ben-Avi mouth Obi-Wa–

And then the grooved walls of the Senate building rush past his head at a controlled pace, and sooner than he expected, his boots are on the duracrete of the Senate Square, and he is bundled into a transport, divested of filthy cloak, and Qui-Gon's own warm, worn cloak wrapped around him. The oversized folds of fabric seem to cocoon him, and when Obi-Wan closes his eyes to meditate, he soon falls past the edge of mediation into the welcoming pool of true, exhausted sleep.

Qui-Gon tucks the red-brown fabric a little more snugly around his apprentice, and then folds his long legs under him to commune with the Force.

His mediation is as troubled and turbulent as the chaotic air-currents of the city-planet, whirling and whirling through the maze of buildings without pause and cease, inhaled, exhaled, burned in the flame of the Force, taking any answers with them into the fire.

Chapter Text

A memory, in the Unifying Force:

When she first beheld his little russet-gold head, she knew he was not hers.

This silent child born of her womb, who smiled instead of laughing and gasped instead of crying; whose minutely chubby hands reached for sunlight as though light could be woven into thread. He had his father's infinite blue eyes and gentle smile, and her dimples; but he was not hers.

Not hers, nor her husbands.

The first time the child saw the stars, he opened his mouth and his lips moved.

She watched, and so did his father; but no sound came, save for the whistle of the evening wind like a flute from the heavens.

The same wind blew her silk headscarf into her child's wind-pinked cheeks as she handed him over into the linen-sleeved arms of another; one who could hear the song in the stars when she could hear nothing.

She swallowed her tears and waved, saying farewell as only a mother could, imparting what lessons she could in that last moment: "Say bye-bye, my dear Obi-Wan," she whispered, smiling through the growing scream in her temples as she waved at him. "Say bye-bye–"

But there was nothing, save for a tiny hand resting on the stranger's cloaked shoulder, and a pair of oceanic blue eyes blinking uncomprehendingly at her as she faded into the innumerable stars of the galaxy…

(:~:)

"The Council welcomes your return, Master Dooku."

The smoke-filled night skies of Coruscant are black and starless behind Mace Windu's shoulders; if one were to kneel within the ring of seats, it would be as though one is faced with twelve looming statues framed with a backdrop of nothing at all. It is enough to intimidate even the boldest of Knights.

Jedi Sentinel Tamesis Dooku suffers from no such timidity.

"I am thankful," he intones, inclining his silver head on a line precisely between Mace and Yoda; it almost suggests increased respect to the Grand Master and less to the Master of the Order.

Those slim Korun eyes narrow ever so slightly. "Rise. You need not be extreme in your deference. You will have noticed the empty chair to your left; Master Nu stated her desire to step down from her place on this council six months previous to further her work in the Archives; as the most senior of the Sentinels, you were naturally the next choice."

"Sit, you may," Yoda's gravelly voice issues from Mace's right elbow. "Sit, and tell us of your investigation, you will."

Dooku stands with far more agility than his recently-tended injuries would suggest, and lowers himself into the circle-backed chair. Instantly he is transformed; his dark cloak no longer flutters around the bulk of bandages around his abdomen, but drapes across crimson cushions like a river of tailored obsidian. Even the chair seems to bend to his will; it molds into his shape like a throne to the spine of a noble.

"I regret to report," Dooku begins somberly, "that our Order appears to have failed in our care of the galaxy as much as we have our younglings."

A startled murmur whips around the circle. Only Yoda's luminescent green eyes do not waver, fixed on his former apprentice as they are.

"As my fellow masters are aware, the mission I was given a year ago was to investigate the activities of Offworld Mining Corporation, a name extracted from the datachip recovered from our foray into the Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children. The name Offworld seemed rather familiar to me, and I soon discovered why – it is run in part by the Hutt clans, out of Nar Shaddaa itself."

A rustle of unease flickers through the chamber. While Nar Shaddaa is at the heart of Hutt space, and therefore not within the bounds of Galactic governance, any corporation with its origins there likely has spawned seeds of illegality throughout the galaxy.

Dooku tosses a small silver object into the middle of the circle with an expert flick of the wrist; there is a sharp whirr, and a holo-screen unfolds above the smooth sphere.

"I have spent much of the past months determining the scope and reach of Offworld, and what I have found is most…disturbing."

Dooku makes a motion with one graceful finger, and an image appears, frozen forever in green.

Several Councilors actually hiss aloud. Jedi value control above all else – but Jedi also adore children, and no child should die in such obvious agony, collapsed in a dank mining tunnel from sheer exhaustion.

"Bandomeer," Dooku states, gravely. "Nearly three years ago, this council decided not to send an Agricorps delegation there; we now know this was a blessing for the young Corps members, and a sad prolongation of suffering for the children already trapped in those mines."

"Resolve the issue, did you?" Master Yoda's ears are lowered in sorrow; he treats all the Jedi under his care as though they are his personal students, and the younglings most of all.

Dooku nods once, eyebrows knitted, sharp as a hawk. "Offworld no longer governs Bandomeer. But lamentably, this is the least of the corporation's atrocities."

Another flick of the wrist. "Lola Sayu."

"Ryloth."

"Troiken."

"Ventrux, as we already know."

Another flick of the wrist. Mace Windu straightens abruptly in his chair, dark eyes burning.

A hundred soulless once-sentients stare back through the emotionless emerald hologram, blank and nerveless and compliant.

"Phindar," Dooku declares, succinctly. "The corporation was operating under the alias of Syndicat. The main objective their being there was to monopolise the trade of bacta in that region, and then further develop its return as a political upheaval of the Phindian government. As you can see, opposition was met with irreversible memory modification. Dismantling this operation took many months; I dared not ask for reinforcements. The Hutts could very well have declared war should Republic presence been detected."

"How fares Phindar now?" Plo Koon inquires.

"Not well. Three-quarters of its population has had its memory altered in some form. Now the Hutts have been wiped from the sector, I have put in a request for Republic aid…through less obvious channels."

Even Piell coughs impatiently. "Vas this the last of the vorlds you visited, then?"

Dooku returns the diminutive master's perceptive, one-eyed glare with a coolly raised eyebrow. "No," he says calmly.

"Vere, then?"

"The last world I tracked Offworld to was Telos IV. The birthplace of the corporation…and also of its originator."

Yoda blinks once, a lowering of wrinkled eyelids over dimmed green eyes. He seems to shrink in his seat. An old, old Jedi, with too many children lost to him.

The name is there, hanging in the Force even before Dooku opens his mouth to vocalize it; a taboo, an unspoken memory of shame and failure.

"Offworld was created by none other than Xanatos DuCrion."

Silence. There is a sort of silence so pure that it falls deeper; a bottomless well of regret and doubt and sorrow, crumbling down, down to the deepest, unexplored recesses of this ancient temple.

Fallen members of the Order are seldom mentioned after their departure; their names are both too precious and too heavy to bring hold. The Order does not forget her lost children.

A jarring truncated hiss resounds into the emptiness as the tall double doors slide open. A young Twi'Lek padawan takes a single step into the room, bows, and enunciates carefully, "Masters Jinn, Ner'iah, and their padawans have returned. Master Jinn wishes to inquire if his presence is needed?"

"Inform both masters that they are required to report to the Council within the hour," Mace replies, glancing at Yoda. "Their padawans need not exhaust themselves; they may go to the Healers." This is said with a sliding glance at Dooku, whose face has gone curiously blank at the mention of the two padawans.

"Yes, Master."

The door hisses closed again.

A harrumphing cough. "So. Xanatos, it was."

"Yes, Master Yoda," Dooku replies.

"Your grandpadwan, he was…and my great-grandpadawan," Yoda mutters.. He hops down from his seat with a muffled thump, and begins to circle the inner ring of the chamber floor, continuing to mutter to himself.

The Council, used to the aged master's strange little quirks, do not comment. Dooku's face, however, morphs for an instant into something similar to distaste; as though he does not wish to be connected to something so…pathetic as a fallen Jedi.

There is a sharp clack of wooden stick against larmalstone. Yoda's next words are just as pointed. "Why returned, have you?" he directs at his former padawan.

Dooku raises an eyebrow. "The trail went cold on Telos. I gathered it was some time since Xanatos was last there. It was there that I heard about the rising of the Cruorven; I decided it was time that I returned."

"Time. Time indeed," Yoda snorts. "Think Xanatos is on Coruscant, do you, hmm?"

"I daresay he could be. If there is one place the worst of the galaxy's criminals could reside, it would be here."

"Continue your investigation, you must."

"Yes, Master."

"And integrate with the Temple again, you must."

"Master?"

Yoda pauses in his shuffling and skewers Dooku with a beady stare. "One who you should speak to, there is."

Dooku does not reply with more than a subtle nod. It does not look anything like an agreement.

The resulting somewhat tense silence is broken by Mace Windu's smooth baritone. "There is another issue we must address before Masters Jinn and Ner'iah arrive." He waves a hand, and a chorus of bleeps rings out by every chair as a report appears on the screens built into every armrest.

Astonishment bleeds into the Force as eyebrows rise around the circle. Even Dooku seems surprised.

"Pah!" Even Piell exclaims as he drags a long fingernail over the crystal surface. "Vaht were the chances of that?"

"We should request Padawan Kenobi be transferred to another politician," Ki-Adi-Mundi says calmly.

"It may well be a trial for him," Adi Gallia counters. "Some Jedi maintain contact with their relatives out of necessity for the Order, like I do; some meet with their families through unforeseen circumstances. I do not see the difference in reaction; the most important course of action is to determine how Padawan Kenobi should react to this."

"Masters, we must–" Mace breaks off his sentence when his comlink chirps at his belt. He flicks it open, only to frown severely down at it.

"It seems we have more than one issue on our hands. Senator Taa has requested Padawan Tori be relieved of his duties in shadowing him."

Yoda's ears perk upwards at the news. "Indeed?" he grunts.

"Senator Taa claims that during the Senate incursion, Padawan Tori threatened to – I quote, 'Disembowel his fat-rolled neck if he did not cease his wailing.'"

Dooku's eyebrows have nearly reached his hairline, now.

There is a short silence, followed by an unidentifiable chortling noise. Mace stares straight ahead, impassively ignoring the source of the sound.

Yoda clears his throat with a hoarse cough and hops up onto his seat again. "Forgive me; old, I am," he says. "Disscuss this we need not; a reliable report, Senator Taa has never given. Transfer padawan Tori we will, to a senator more suited to this program."

"And Padawan Kenobi?" Mace inquires.

"Ask Master Jinn to speak with him, we will," Yoda states decisively. "Growing wiser, Obi-Wan is. Have faith in him, we shall. Xanatos, however, we will not speak of to any outside this council."

"Yes, Master," eleven voices intone.

"Go for a walk, I will, before they arrive," Yoda grumbles. "If you will join me, Master Dooku. Much to speak of, we have."

"Of course, Master."

If Dooku sounds anything less than perfectly agreeable, not a word is said as he and Yoda step from the chamber.

(:~:)

SENATE COMMUNICATIONS UNIT 438, ACTIVATED

IDENTITY CONFIRMED: KENOBI, BEN-AVI

"I need to make an urgent call."

REMINDER: TRANSCRIPT WILL BE PROVIDED

"No, no, I don't need a transcri– oh, blast it to Kessel. Make the call, infernal machine."

COMM CALL INITIATED

STAR-SYSTEM: STEWJON. PLANET: STEWJON. COMM CODE: 69883, SUFARI PALACE. SUB-CONNECTION CODE: 187, SOUTHERN GARDENS

SECURE LINE ESTABLISHED

CONNECTION STABLE

"Hello?"

"Darling, it's me."

"Ben-Avi! Thank goodness – I was about to take Kifi and run for Coruscant!"

"It did take us a few hours to break out. I'm sorry for worrying you."

"You're unharmed?"

"My mind has taken a bit of a beating, but other than that, I'm perfectly hale."

"Well, you don't sound hurt in the least, but you seem to have a habit of injuring yourself when I'm not there to keep an eye on you, so I can't be blamed for asking. Are you quite sure?"

"I'm completely fine, dear. I just – well – have you been keeping an eye on the holonet news?"

"No, I haven't. Half the news in the last three hours on there looks as though it hasn't been verified. I rather thought it unwise to keep the holo-screen on if one couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. I have other means of information - you know the Department of Intelligence wouldn't dare keep their sovereign in the dark."

"Oh, so you haven't seen it, then. Good."

"Seen what, Ben-Avi?"

"Darling, there's something very important that I have to tell you. Regarding how this situation was resolved."

"Is this about who "us" is?"

"What?"

"You said it took "us" a few hours to break out. Who is "us"? If I didn't know better, it sounds awfully like you and a score of others actually attempted to take back the Senate from within. You were rescued, weren't you?"

"In a sense, yes."

"Husband…"

"I know, I know. It concerns the Jedi assigned to me."

"Yes, the Senate-Jedi cooperation program. I remember."

"Well, my dear, as it turned out, the Jedi they sent were rather…younger…than expected. Apprentices, not Knights."

COMM CHANNEL DATAFLOW: PROLONGED DECREASE. INQUIRY: CONNECTION QUALITY? CHECKING CONNECTION. CONNECTION STABLE. REPORT: POSSIBLE PROLONGED STALL IN CONVERSATION. CONTINUE TRANSCRIPT

"What are you trying to say, Ben-Avi?"

"Darling, I…we…our…"

UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE CONTENT. DURATION: 5.38 STANDARD SECONDS. REMINDER: PROGRAM CANNOT TRANSCRIBE NON-STANDARD WORDS. SHOULD THE USER REQUIRE A CLEAN TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE REFRAIN FROM EXCESSIVELY EMOTIVE EXCLAMATIONS OR NON-BASIC TERMINOLOGY. CONTINUE TRANSCRIPT

"I…I found him, Alephi. I found our son. He saved me, and almost everyone else in the building."

UNCLEAR TRANSCRIPTION. DURATION: 30.89 STANDARD SECONDS. PLEASE NOTE: FOLLOWING TRANSCRIPTION MAY BE INACCURATE DUE TO SOUND INTERFERENCE. REMINDER: PLEASE SPEAK CLEARLY AND REFRAIN FROM EMOTIVE SPEECH.

"Ben, I'm coming. I'm coming with Kifi. We'll be there in three rotations."

"You should have seen him, darling. I was…I am so proud."

"I'm coming. I love you."

"I love you too. Kiss Kifi for me."

CONNECTION TERMINATED

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SENATE COMMUNICATIONS UNIT 438, POWERING DOWN

(:~:)

SENATE COMMUNICATIONS UNIT 438, REACTIVATED

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(:~:)

Obi-Wan takes a step back from his handiwork and settles down onto the grass to examine the tree.

The young muja tree sways gently in the breeze that curls down from the open-topped garden. Two years into its life, the tree stands a metre and a half tall. While previously the trunk had resembled a switch more than a sapling, now it stands steady, wide enough for Obi-Wan's fingertips to only barely touch should he wrap his hands around its girth.

It is with a touch of something resembling pride that Obi-Wan has just removed the last of the molded plastoid sticks that had supported the sapling throughout the early years of its growth. It is not to say that the muja tree no longer needs support, for its roots still need to be weeded and checked for their health – but it is now strong enough to stand on its own, with a vibrant crown of emerald leaves that rustle melodically in the afternoon wind.

Obi-Wan brushes a finger by the nubs that dot a slender branch. Flower nubs. He had pointed them out to Qui-Gon excitedly two weeks ago, only to discover that it was probable the tree would not flower very much at all, given the peaceful and well-watered environment of Obi-Wan's favourite garden. Muja trees, his master had informed him, did not flower unless under environmental pressure. In its current comfort, it simply sits and waits, like a Jedi in meditation before a trial of spirit or flesh.

A voice sounds over his shoulder.

"Are you aware that Muja farmers cut carefully into the bark of young muja trees to encourage them to flower, my young apprentice?"

Obi-Wan does not turn to look at Qui-Gon; the Jedi Master's presence is a flare in the Force behind him, as warm as a lodestone.

A rustle of cloak and tunics. Now his master is an actual warm figure a hand-span from his side, and a large, tunic-sleeved hand reaches forward to touch a leaf.

"The process does not hurt the trees, though it does allow the farmers to harvest a few more times a year than what they would have been able to through natural farming." Qui-Gon completes his scrutiny of the young tree and focuses his scrutiny on his padawan instead. "Will you be adhering to this practice?"

A gust of wind sends a shower of small pebbles pattering against the base of the tree.

Obi-Wan shakes his head, and points at where the pebbles have left minute tracks across the bark, little shallow comet-trails.

"Ah, yes." Qui-Gon's eyes crinkle at the corners as he watches the Muja tree sway with the wind. "Trials come, manufactured or otherwise."

Obi-Wan bows and turns to go, but a broad hand lands squarely on his shoulder and quite effectively stops him from taking another step.

Qui-Gon meets his raised eyebrow with a cool smile. "A Jedi meditates before an expected trial, young apprentice."

The aforementioned young apprentice – though something inside him protests that almost-fifteen is not young at all – rolls his eyes up at his master, earning him a pinch on the ear.

"But you will find it is often the meditation after said trial," – the lanky Jedi folds himself onto the soft grass, pulling his apprentice down opposite – "that is far more important. It is reflection, remember, that teaches."

"We will reflect on familial attachment and the proper course of action upon encountering former relatives."

Obi-Wan bows his head deferentially to hide his frown, only to have his chin jerked up by deft movement from his master. The azure eyes that bore into his are every bit as unrelentless as he had expected.

"Padawan. You cannot run from this conversation. It has been a week since the incident at the Senate, and you will return there on the morrow. I should have spoken to you immediately after you woke." Here, Qui-Gon pauses, as if debating how to phrase his next sentence. "Obi-Wan…the sudden appearance of your father has moved this conversation forward by a few years, but it has also become of utmost importance."

Obi-Wan flinches at the mention of master's calloused thumb inadvertently scrapes over his chin at Obi-Wan's sudden motion, accidentally reddening the skin.

Qui-Gon's voice continues on its solemn procession, much to his apprentice's discomfort. "Traumatic experience lends…distastefulness…to situations such as this. You will have noticed that the council has, for lack of a better phrase, glossed over this matter, but that was purely because they extracted a verbal promise from myself to inquire on their behalf."

The red-gold head dips again as Qui-Gon releases Obi-Wan's chin. He cannot meet his master's gaze. His hands meet in his lap, fingers twisting.

"…But I am not," Qui-Gon murmurs, much softer.

"I am not inquiring on the council's behalf," Qui-Gon clarifies in response to the puzzled gaze he receives. "Inquire is far too close a word to investigate. You are not a subject of interrogation. I simply wish to listen."

Obi-Wan does not move.

"Padawan?"

When Qui-Gon perceives no movement in reply, he takes a deep, measured breath before speaking again. "I must confess that recent events have…worried…me. I am responsible for your wellbeing, padawan…as remiss as I have been in that respect."

A rustle of flimsi. Obi-Wan pens a line into the paper, so rushed and quick that the smooth scratch of stylus and ink turns into a crackle of breaking fibre. He pushes the sheet into his master's hands with uncharacteristic urgency.

Qui-Gon has not so much accepted the flimsy and opened his mouth before Obi-Wan completes a full bow – more like a desperate smash of forehead against the grass – scrambles to his feet with haste, and departs the garden in an almost-run.

The lone Jedi in the garden kneels there in the grass for a long, long minute before he unrolls the rumpled square and examines his apprentice's reply.

I cannot speak of what I do not know. I am sorry. I go to seek guidance from those wiser than I; I shall return by the evening bell.

Qui-Gon fights the urge to knead his forehead. A note such as this is exactly Obi-Wan – flat-out denial, sincere apology, and well-thought-out plan of action. This must be why the tutors of Obi-Wan's classes always phrase their worst comments with such obvious affection for the young Jedi.

The lower edge of the flimsi is still creased over. Qui-Gon unfolds it.

Fear not, Master, for you were never remiss in your care.

Here the ink splashes on the last letter, turning the well-cut lines of Aurebesh letters into overflowing gutters.

Unexpected moisture threatens to overflow elsewhere, too.

A short while later, Qui-Gon masters himself, pockets the flimsi, and like his apprentice goes to find those wiser than he.

(:~:)

It would appear that those wiser than he are more difficult to locate than expected.

Half an afternoon out and about the Temple, and the little green troll is nowhere to be found, Tahl is unreachable by Force and comms, and– well, frankly, Qui-Gon would rather fight an army of Sith than go to a certain bald-headed Korun for emotional advice.

Qui-Gon sinks onto a bench wedged between two enormous pillars. Loathe as he is to admit it, his knees are aching, and they creak dangerously as he stretches out his legs. The huff that escapes his lips as he leans back against the white marble echoes through the vast hall and out the main entrance of the Temple, tumbling down the steps of the Processional Way and into the roiling seas of Coruscant. Sunlight pours through the cavernous entrance, paving the white floors with clear gold.

Qui-Gon fells his lips twitch in a reluctant smile as he leans back against the warm stone. "You're feeling old too, I gather," he chuckles as he gazes up at the ancient ceiling, carved from stone so aged it would make Yoda seem no more than a babe.

"You're talking to a building. I don't think it's just a feeling," a mirthful voice hums right by his ear.

Qui-Gon's neck releases a prominent crack when he whips his head to the side. Tahl's green-gold eyes smile triumphantly down at him as he groans and rubs the offending few vertebrae.

"I've been searching for you for hours," Qui-Gon grinds out, once his neck feels up to movement again. "You didn't answer my comms."

Tahl raises one sharp eyebrow at him, hands planted on her hips. She grins wickedly. "As it should be. I've been avoiding you for hours."

Qui-Gon squints at her, still massaging the base of his neck. He knows her too well to voice any query.

A sigh. Tahl flaps a hand at him. "Scoot over. I can't communicate with you when you're imitating an injured sand-turtle."

Frowning, he shifts to the side. Tahl crams herself into the space between Qui-Gon's elbow and the next pillar without a care, and reaches over to massage his shoulders. Forcefully.

"If anyone were to pass by, they'd think you were trying to break my neck," Qui-Gon comments with a wince.

"Nobody's passing by, so shut up."

Qui-Gon submits to her ministrations with a well-adjusted silence.

Tahl gives him one last smack between his shoulder blades and speaks over his oof of protest. "I've just spent the afternoon conversing with your wayward apprentice."

Qui-Gon gives his head an experimental roll; though smarting slightly, it no longer feels like it is about to fall off. "I see," he phrases carefully as he turns towards her.

The bright afternoon sunlight makes the emerald-yellow contrast in Tahl's narrowed gaze. fiercely prominent, like the glint of grass in the gold of an Asharl panther's eyes. Qui-Gon fights the urge to swallow as he awaits her response.

"You're both idiots," she proclaims, plainly.

He blinks. "Indeed."

"Don't indeed me. He does not wish to talk about his father, but he needs to. You wish to talk about it but – for reasons unknown to me – you don't know how to do so in a manner that doesn't involve going right in and ripping out the thorn."

"I am aware that the process will be painful–"

"He can't even hear the word father without flinching, Qui."

"I know."

"You can't force this."

"I know, Tahl."

"At least offer to meditate with him–"

"I–" Qui-Gon breaks off as a group of Temple staff passes by, footsteps echoing in the vaulted ceiling.

"Tahl," he begins again, in a low murmur. "In this past week, I have meditated with him. I have trained with him until his mental shields grew weak with exhaustion. I have sat in front of him while he stared at a blank sheet of paper for an hour. I have offered to receive the memories second-hand from a healer, offered to read his words away from his presence, offered anything I could think of to get him to reveal what happened in those gas-filled Senate corridors. There has not been one moment where I–"

"Qui."

He stops, mid-sentence, and blinks.

Tahl pats his knee comfortingly. "I should think that is quite enough. The answer is simple."

Qui-Gon waits expectantly.

"Tell him you no longer expect him to speak to you about his father or the Senate incursion."

Blue eyes stare back at her, befuddled. "What?"

Tahl laughs once, a tinkle of bright sound that spills over into the hall outside the little alcove. "He's like you, remember?" she says, smiling mischievously. Qui-Gon is reminded forcefully for a moment of a six-year-old initiate grinning the same exact grin at his seven-year-old self. Tahl smacks him good-naturedly on the shoulder. "The only way I ever convinced you to do the intelligent thing when we were younger was to tell you I expected the exact opposite. Obi-Wan needs to speak with someone about his uncertainties. He simply thinks he doesn't want to."

The alcove is silent for a long moment. The Force is tinged with surprise.

"You have my thanks," Qui-Gon murmurs, smoothing down his beard with one hand. "You have given me much to meditate upon."

Tahl smiles at him again, and his heart warms, despite the nagging, unfinished disquiet in the corner of his mind that is connected to Obi-Wan's.

"Anyone else could have given you this advice, you know," Tahl laughs, poking his cheek with one slim finger like she used to, when they were children. Her eyes sparkle when he does not even attempt to avoid the poke – he is too accustomed to her teasing.

"And you know very well that I only listen to you," Qui-Gon counters. Because you are my–

He slams the thought behind mental bars before it can finish itself.

The Force stalls mid-flight, like a convoree stricken from the air.

Beside him, Tahl has gone very quiet.

Qui-Gon gathers his wide sleeves and rises. "I must locate my padawan." The cold air by his elbow seems to mock him.

Tahl's cloak brushes against the marble as she stands, too. "I should do the same. Bant's diplomacy lesson will finish in a quarter hour."

They make each other the deepest of bows, filled with respect and honour and a hundred other words except one.

That done, they walk together down the cavernous hall, and part wordlessly at its ending.

In the deepening twilight, the small alcove grows cold in the lengthening shadows.

(:~:)

When the whoosh of the door sliding aside registers to Qui-Gon's ears, he deepens his breathing and rises out of his shallow meditation. The sky above the balcony railing to his left is already a deep blue, and a rumble in his stomach reminds him of the hour.

Behind him, there is a soft clatter as boots are removed and placed aside, and then a soft pad-pad of quiet feet on the floorboards. The balcony door squeaks as it is pushed aside, and a shorter form folds itself onto the meditation pad opposite, lit only by the bright lights of Coruscant.

"Have you eaten?" The elder of the pair speaks first.

The younger head shakes in reply.

"Hm. You should have. You need the energy."

A very loud and very embarrassing rumble makes itself known.

Obi-Wan's solemn expression splits into a wicked grin as he looks pointedly at his master's stomach. In the half-light, his face is a fearsome mixture of youth and delight.

Qui-Gon holds up a conciliatory hand. "I have not eaten because I was ruminating on my many faults. However, I have finished growing, while you have not."

Obi-Wan's shoulders roll in a cheeky little shrug as if to say, Have you?

The elder Jedi raises an eyebrow as he dips a hand into his sleeve and withdraws the well-worn square of flimsy. "I would think before I write," he warns as he hands it over.

Obi-Wan nonchalantly spreads the flimsy on one knee and flourishes his stylus.

Qui-Gon watches, unsure whether to treat his padawan's jaunty transformation with relief or trepidation. It is certainly better than finding an unhealthily contrite padawan kowtowing at the door, at any rate.

The flimsy is presented. Qui-Gon's lips quirk to the side in amusement. There, presented in full formal lettering as if it were a diplomatic letter:

Master, upon a full afternoon's contemplation, I have come to the conclusion that our earlier quarrel occurred from a distinct lack of perceptiveness on both our parts. I did not wish to speak of something I was yet unsure about; you wished to reassure me, but I doubt you communicated your aim as clearly as you desired.

In light of this stalemate, I have the following proposition: As Master Quora-Li-Kena once stated in her writings, "A lack of data is the scourge of proper debate," so let us leave this matter alone until we acquire exposure sufficient enough to hold an informed conversation.

Qui-Gon lifts his eyes from the perusal of the inked lines to meet Obi-Wan's gaze. His padawan, he is pleased to see, is holding his stare steadily enough. In fact, if it were not for their training bond, anyone else would be hard-pressed to notice Obi-Wan's nervousness, as well-hidden as it is.

Qui-Gon contemplates staying silent for a moment longer, but his heart wins him over and he allows his stern visage to drop into a long-suffering expression. "Very well. I accept your proposition," he says, dryly.

Eyes sparkling, Obi-Wan tilts his head, radiating accomplishment.

The older Jedi swats him about the head without any real heat, and Obi-Wan allows the blow to graze his hair with equal mock-seriousness.

The door chime rings unexpectedly, followed immediately after by the sound of the locks deactivating. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan glance at each other. Only two people in the galaxy would dare do that without an answer.

Feemor Ner'iah's blond-ponytailed head sticks into the room, bearing an insanely jovial grin. "Greetings, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan," he calls delightedly. "I come bearing gifts."

"Feemor. Remove yourself from the premises before I remove you," Qui-Gon returns as he stalks through the balcony doors. "My padawan and I have not yet eaten, and I would very much pity any sentient that stands between us and the refectory."

A lighter voice inserts itself into the conversation. "What if I told you the gifts involve foodstuffs of various natures?"

Qui-Gon stops mid-stride and stares at the corridor. "Tahl," he sighs. Behind him, Obi-Wan grins widely.

Tahl nudges Feemor into the room none-too-gently, using with the large metal pot on her hip as a battering ram of sorts. Behind her, Huei Tori and Bant Eerin stand side-by-side in the doorway – one listening with well-veiled interest, the other watching with open curiosity.

The Pot meets Qui-Gon's well-oiled stovetop with a prominent clatter. "We thought you might need feeding and watering," Tahl says conversationally. "It must be so very exhausting, being men and so not talking to one another." Her eyes glint at them.

"She.She thought you might need feeding and watering," Feemor interjects before Qui-Gon can reply. "And that's not true what she said about men not talking. My padawan and I talk about important things all the time, don't we, Huei?"

"My duties as a padawan do not include having to agree with you at all times," Huei says dispassionately, from where he sits on the floor with Obi-Wan and Bant. However, the slightest glimmer of white teeth between his lips belies the young Nautolan's amusement.

"I'm wounded," Feemor declares.

"In the mind," Qui-Gon mutters.

"What–"

"Sit!" Tahl interrupts, moving The Pot to the table. "Eat."

"Yes, master," the three padawans intone as they come forward, hands clasped politely. Feemor shrugs and slides into a seat, only to jump up and run for the door when a loud voice issues from behind it.

"'Ey, why're yer all eatin' wivout me?"

A gold-striped streak barrels past Feemor and into the knot of padawans, and Huei's warning shout of "Ezhno!" is met with, if anything, an even more exuberant greeting from the Togruta boy.

Through the clattering chaos that follows, Qui-Gon meets Tahl's eyes across the kitchen, and knows she understands his smile.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan stands before the Felucian-wood door, and subtly dries his sweating hands on the edge of his tunic.

Qui-Gon had sent him off in the Temple's northern hangar half an hour previous, with the flare of the noonday sun high enough to obliterate their shadows. The elder Jedi had only spoken one sentence.

"I trust in your judgement, Obi-Wan."

Now, standing here, Obi-Wan wonders at the value of his master's regard if he himself does not trust his own judgement. He suddenly remembers that he gave Ben-Avi his stone flute; he wonders if the minister still has it.

Steeling himself, he raises his right hand – his left is still bandaged with a bacta patch, courtesy of an extremely irate Qui-Gon for not telling him about it in the first place – and knocks firmly. Politely.Calmly. Like a Jedi apprentice should.

That voice answers; his stomach flips. "Come in."

Obi-Wan feels the blood pumping through his fingers as he grasps the old-style door handle and pushes open the door.

Ben-Avi smiles at him from behind a wide desk. He does not stand up to receive his visitor, a fact that Obi-Wan appreciates. It is disconcerting enough to have to do this at all; having to determine what level of formality to interact on would be an exercise in agony.

"Hello, there," Ben-Avi says quietly, with a hint of mirth quirking at the corner of his mouth. His eyes gleam bright blue, though the crowsfeet at their edges are wrinkled with something more than laughter.

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow and allows a small, hesitant smile to spread on his own features, acknowledging the reference to their first meeting here.

"Do sit down," Ben-Avi waves at the chair across from him. "I'm swamped with paperwork – I know, one wouldn't think that a cultural minister would have his time occupied with something as mundane as paperwork, but it appears there are many bits of flimsy I have to sign."

The chair is padded and surprisingly comfortable, but Obi-Wan perches on it in ramrod-straight posture anyway, clasping his hands together.

There is hardly any sound in the room at all; the tap-tap of Ben-Avi's stylus and the ticking of the antique chrono on the sideboard is all there is.

Ben-Avi finishes scrawling on a datapad, tosses it aside, and aims his stylus at a circular stylus-holder on the edge of his desk. It misses, and glances off the metal edge with a defiant clink. The minister scrambles for it, but before he can do more than shift in his seat, the stylus freezes on the circular lip and reverses smoothly, inserting itself soundlessly into the cylinder.

Ben-Avi halts, hands grasping the armrests of his chair, and blinks. He turns to face Obi-Wan, slowly.

Obi-Wan fights the urge to flinch, having hurriedly lowered his hand.

"You used to do that with the breadsticks in the kitchen," Ben-Avi says, with an odd note in his voice. "But the opposite."

Now it is Obi-Wan's turn to blink in surprise.

"You used to hurl them at my head," Ben-Avi clarifies, a bit sheepishly. He tugs at his high collar, as though the midnight-blue fabric is constricting his neck.

Obi-Wan's jaw would very much like to hit the floor, but he catches the motion before it fully begins and screws his lips shut.

"It was only me, you understand," Ben-Avi continues, with the air of a man realising he is rambling but not quite knowing how to stop. "You never threw them at your mother."

A film of something hot and liquid suddenly forms over Obi-Wan's eyes at that word; a reaction so deep and unexpected that he is hard-pressed to stop it. He finds himself staring at the crest of arms etched with silver thread into the right breast of Ben-Avi's coat, a Stewjon songbird captured mid-flight.

"She's here, you know."

Obi-Wan's gaze snaps back to his fa– the minister's face.

"My wife," Ben-Avi says, swallowing audibly. "She's just through that door, along with your– oh. Maybe I should leave that for later. One thing at a time. Would you like to meet her?"

Obi-Wan nods mechanically.

Ben-Avi rises, and the heavy fabric of his midnight blue frock-coat falls about his knees; heavy with duty and station.

"Through here." Two boot-steps to the right, and Ben-Avi opens a side door cleverly melded into the wall-pattern.

Obi-Wan feels himself rising and following, but he cannot remember deciding to do so; it is as though he is detached from his body, and the fourteen-year-old boy with the padawan braid and the lightsaber on his belt and the sharp Jedi tunics is someone else entirely.

There is a figure dressed in a long black coat and matching trousers at the far wall; at the sound of the door opening, she turns, lit with the afternoon light of Coruscant from her left.

Obi-Wan does not know what he notices first.

Sable hair, cut short at the chin save for a long straight lock at the back, secured with a silver clip; warm brown eyes above a nose that seems very familiar, and a smile that mirrors his own exactly, hesitant but determined.

And then the Jedi part of him notices the rest.

Three-quarter length black coat, reinforced silk, expensive but practical. Stewjon songbird, etched into her coat like Ben-Avi's, but in black silk thread just barely a shade darker than the coat itself, and with a crown of lighter grey above the bird itself. The glint of something at the top of one leather boot; throwing knife? Posture relaxed, but the smooth glide of her turn speaks of well-trained restraint. And there, resting against the wall, the dull shine of well-used leather; a pair of sheathed short swords.

She has already finished her sentence before Obi-Wan shakes himself out of his daze.

He stares up at her, unable to breathe. She is tall, taller even than Ben-Avi.

Her smile widens, just enough to show her dimples – Obi-Wan's dimples – and her eyes soften into warm pools of understanding. She is no longer young, but her features have the timelessness of a mother's face.

"My name is Alephi, Aleph for short," she repeats, as though this is not the second time she has introduced herself. "I am so very glad to meet you, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan does not move. Somehow, bowing seems to be exactly the wrong thing to do.

Alephi raises a hand slowly, bringing it into his field of vision carefully. "May I?" she asks, and here her voice betrays her, shivering in the afternoon light.

He nods, less mechanically than before; slow, and determined.

Alephi's hands tremble as they touch his face, but as they clasp his cheeks her fingers steady.

Obi-Wan feels callouses brush against his cheekbones, and wonders at the stories they could tell.

Her fingers trace the bridge of his nose, the braid at his temple, the russet peaks of his hair; Obi-Wan feels a flash in the Force of cool fingers on his forehead, cooing away the flush of fever…

He closes his eyes against the vision. It is too much at once.

"Oh, my dear Obi-Wan," he hears, from above. A rustle of silk and leather, and lips press against his forehead, a formal benediction of desperate memory.

Obi-Wan's hands twitch at his sides; his fingers feel as though they are dancing with the impulse to do something, something dear and once-known, as natural as a baby's first urge to stand and take an eager step.

Another, wider hand than Alephi's presses against the back of his neck, ink-softened, with a signet ring on the smallest finger. And here the Force swells again, and though Obi-Wan has never had the tiniest talent for psychometry, the ring grows warm against the back of his neck and he sees through another pair of eyes a rocking crib with a bundle of blankets, and a signet ring dangled teasingly out of reach of a pair of chubby hands.

Head bowed, Obi-Wan grasps at the threads of his control, of his teaching and his station and his title, of lessons learnt with two dozen tiny robed children before a stern crèche-master and still more at the side of masters taller and wiser than he–

–And one, tallest, strongest, his teacher.

And then a tiny form latches onto his leg, firmly, and Obi-Wan opens his eyes.

Alephi steps back from him and trills a laugh, which cascades into the Unifying force like droplets of gold.

Obi-Wan stares at the toddler attached to his left boot and feels his brows furrowing in bemusement.

The toddler – a girl, he realises – shakes her russet fringe out of her massive brown eyes and declares messily, "Obeee."

Ben-Avi makes a choking sound from somewhere above and behind Obi-Wan.

Unsure of what to do, Obi-Wan reaches down and attempts to pry the child off his newly shined boots. He is unsuccessful.

"This is Kifi-Ra," Ben-Avi says as he steps beside his wife. "We call her Kifi. Your younger sister."

That particular bombshell ricochets off Obi-Wan's decimated shields and swats him firmly about the head. Belatedly, he reflects that he should not be surprised; siblings, after all, are logical.

"Obee. Up."

He sends a panicked look in Ben-Avi's direction, only to get a gleeful grin in return.

Alephi takes pity on him. "Grasp her under the arms – yes, like that – don't worry about potato-sacking her, she's practically made of durasteel for a one-year-old. One arm under her, the other around her back. Good."

Kifi settles into Obi-Wan's arms and promptly stuffs his braid into her mouth. He stares right back into her wide gaze, every bit as curious as she is.

"We don't suck on other people's braids, Kifi," Alephi chides gently, pulling the beaded braid away from her.

"The things we say as parents," Ben-Avi mutters.

Obi-Wan looks from Kifi to Ben-Avi and Alephi, and in that moment of silence, he does not remember the weight of the cloak on his shoulders at all.

A hiss of hydraulics as the door to the corridor suddenly opens; a uniformed guardsman sticks his head into the chamber and opens his mouth–

Alephi's eyes widen. "Don't–"

"Your majesty," the guard says quickly, "I'm afraid I have news from the Chancellor that– oh." He gapes at the little tableau, ears rapidly turning red.

Alephi breaks the silence. "Tell Chancellor Valorum I will see him in fifteen minutes." A quiet note of command has entered her voice, and Obi-Wan can see the guard not-quite-wincing.

"Yes, ma'am," the guard replies, shutting the door behind his retreat with the air of one gladly fleeing.

Obi-Wan lowers Kifi back to the carpet, and cares not that she latches onto his boot again.

Alephi seems to take a moment to collect herself. "Obi-Wan," she says without preamble, "There is something Ben-Avi and I have to tell you."

"This is the sigil of my House," Ben-Avi says quietly, tapping the front of his coat. "House Kenobi, one of the eight noble houses of Stewjon."

"This," Alephi indicates the coat of arms on her own coat, "Is my sigil upon marrying Ben-Avi, my royal crest for my reign." The grey crown of the Stewjon songbird stands out against the black background.

"My queen," Ben-Avi says, dryly. "I'm…well. Not ranked king, exactly. A duke."

Obi-Wan looks between them, and raises a hand to press against his own chest in question. He feels his heart thudding against his ribs, denying, denying–

"And you, my Obi-Wan," Alephi says, eyes sadly proud, "Are crown prince to the system of Stewjon."

Chapter Text

"And you, my Obi-Wan, are crown prince to the system of Stewjon."

Obi-Wan looks between his parents – and there in itself is cause enough for shock, a family together – and attempts to reclassify them as Queen and Duke. This, he succeeds with a little persuasion of the mind. They look regal enough, in their own way.

Then he attempts to think of himself as a prince.

He is not so successful.

Ben-Avi makes a noise halfway between a snort and a sigh. "If we tell him like that, Alephi dear," he murmurs quietly, "we might have a fainter on our hands."

"Kenobies are made of sterner stuff," Alephi responds, equally softly, though a smile flickers at her lips, below eyes still full of unshed tears. "I married one. I gave birth to two. I thought to get the shock over quickly – Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan catches himself. He becomes aware his right hand has drifted partway towards his lighstaber hilt, not out of an urge to draw it, but simply to ground himself.

"It's not as complicated as we've made it sound," Alephi says. "You're Crown Prince in title only, and we haven't been able to relieve you of that title as of yet due to law."

"Right," Ben-Avi adds, as he bends to snag Kifi from Obi-Wan's boot. The little girl gurgles in protest as she is interrupted from gnawing at a buckle. Ben-Avi steadies her with a doting smile and continues calmly, as if this were a conversation over tea. "We'd have had to call for you in a few months, anyhow. A Crown Prince or Princess can only appeal to the Crown to renounce his or her title from the age of fifteen, upon which," – and here he almost rolls his eyes – "the title will then be given to the next eldest sibling." He hefts Kifi next to his face, causing her to squeal in laughter. "In this case, your sister."

"Your fifteenth life-day is in a week," Alephi tags on, with barely a pause between her husband finishing his sentence and her beginning to speak. "So if you wish to renounce your title then, you may do so entirely at your leisure." A shadow of sorrow flits over her features before it is smoothed away effortlessly; a memory of too many life-days missed.

Oh.

Relief washes over Obi-Wan, so thick and blinding it nearly unbalances him. He reaches for the square of folded flimsy at his belt, and pens a quick line across it, holding it up for the adults' benefit:

I shall be glad to have a crown princess for a younger sister.

Alephi and Ben-Avi's obvious relief at this almost surpasses Obi-Wan's; it shines in the Force as a heady mixture of sorrow, regret, pride, and happiness. For a moment, all three of them simply stand and smile at one another – the most pressing of matters having been said, and resolved.

A voice interrupts them.

"Obeeeee."

Alephi laughs as she regards her younger child reaching for the elder.

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow, watching Kifi dribble spit over the front of her smock as she makes desperate, grabbing motions at him.

"A lovely crown princess, indeed," Ben-Avi murmurs, as he hands Kifi over to Obi-Wan again.

The toddler sets happily into her brother's embrace, stuffing his braid in her mouth. Obi-Wan does not have the heart to remove it.

"I must go see the Chancellor, now," Alephi says regretfully, glancing at her chrono as she scrubs at her eyes with her other hand. "I don't think his guards will take kindly to me going into his office armed, so keep an eye on my weapons, darling." She makes a motion towards the pair of short swords leaning against the wall. "And keep Kifi away from them."

"Yes, dear."

"Good." She presses a kiss first to her husband's cheek, then her daughter's forehead, and finally – with a startled blink from the recipient – Obi-Wan's brow. "I'll be back in a moment." With that, she strides away with purposeful steps.

Kifi gnaws away happily at the end of Obi-Wan's braid.

"She's teething," Ben-Avi explains as he leads the way back through the side-door into his office. "Can't be helped."

Obi-Wan, preoccupied with keeping his sister in as secure a hold as possible, barely absorbs the words. The two siblings stare at each other across a plane of mutual curiosity, one chewing noisily, the other silently regarding.

"By the way, Obi-Wan," Ben-Avi says as he seats himself behind his desk again and reaches for his stylus, "I know you're used to writing your words for strangers, but I know sign language. We kept up with our learning even after we gave you to the Order, just so we could communicate when we met you again." For a moment, he stares at the stylus in his hand, as if lost in memory, before he raises his head and flashes a grin at his children. "So you don't need to use flimsy with your mother or I," he finishes. "Though it might be difficult with an armful of toddler," he grins teasingly.

Obi-Wan looks at him in befuddlement.

Ben-Avi smile slips, slightly, but he holds out his hands for Kifi without comment.

Once his hands are free, Obi-Wan wastes no time in scribbling a response:

Sign language?

Ben-Avi takes the slip of flimsy with the hand not occupied with keeping Kifi seated on the desk, and lowers his eyes to read it.

Confused, Obi-Wan watches Ben-Avi's knuckles whiten, and then loosen in the same instant. He accepts the flimsy when it is returned, and sits up a little straighter, like all good students about to accept an explanation for something they have yet to know.

Ben-Avi is staring at him.

Despite all his training, Obi-Wan gives a little self-conscious twitch.

And just like that, Ben-Avi seems to snap back to himself.

"Ah, it's nothing," he says, eyes softening as Kifi tugs at his collar. "I assumed something. I must have been mistaken."

Obi-Wan nods, suppressing the frown that threatens to wrinkle his brow.

A drawer slides open soundlessly as Ben-Avi waves a hand over the sensor. "And I believe I should return this to you," he says, with the hint of a smile.

He is holding a stone flute, embossed with twirling leaves and vines, and a river stone shot through with streaks of red-gold.

Obi-Wan cannot quite hold back the pleasure on his features as he takes the flute and slips it back into his sleeve, and the stone in is pocket. He had not been aware how displaced he had felt without them until now.

"Oh, I've cleared my schedule for the rest of the afternoon," Ben-Avi says casually as closes the drawer with a snap and gives Kifi a gentle push back in her brother's direction. "We thought it best if we met with your teacher as soon as possible, to avoid any misunderstandings."

Obi-Wan's head comes up so quickly his braid nearly tears itself out of Kifi's hands. At her little cry of protest, though, he dips his chin again and allows her to grab the swinging piece of hair.

He feels Ben-Avi's gaze on the crown of his head for a moment, before it slips away again.

Qui-Gon had not mentioned anything of the sort when he saw Obi-Wan off at the Temple northern hangar, earlier; Obi-Wan resolves to take up with Qui-Gon the subject of telling your padawan about important events, as soon as possible.

Ben-Avi's stylus scratches over his datapad. "But it appears as though we have a while, at least, until your mother returns from her meeting with Chancellor Valorum," he comments. "Political niceties, as you know, do tend to drag on at times. I'm supposed to teach you Senate workings during this attachment; if you'd like to help me make a dent in this paperwork, Obi-Wan, I'd be very grateful."

Ben Avi raises his head, and leans forward conspiratorially, blue eyes glimmering. "I give you full permission to forge my signature," he stage-whispers.

With a hint of a grin, Obi-Wan settles Kifi on his lap, and holds out his hand for the first sheet of flimsy.

(:~:)

Ezhno's montrals are prickling.

He rubs them surreptitiously against the hard plastiform roller-board at his back, and continues to weld the repulsor casing with vengeance. The fat sparks trickle over his gloves and scatter over the transparisteel shield covering his face and lekku.

His montrals move from prickling discomfort into full-blown itching.

With a growl, Ezhno pulls himself out from under the light flyer and scrambles off the roller-board, tearing off gloves and face shield to go into a rubbing frenzy with both hands at his montrals.

A passing pilot pauses to look at him in concern. Ezhno grimaces up at him as the man's lips move. "You're going to get engine oil over your stripes, kid."

"M' montrals 're gonna itch righ' off my 'ead, Saret," Ezhno moans, scratching at a particularly irritated spot without care for the grease under his fingernails. "Master Ti said it were gonna 'appen fer 'nother year or so, like, 'til the growth spurt is done, but this is impossible."

He manages to raise his head in time to see Saret's chest move in a laugh. "You'll be eighteen in a year or so," the pilot says. "Then you'll soon have montrals and lekku too magnificent to fit under diplomatic transports."

Ezhno can't find the energy to muster up more than a grunt in response.

A hand pats his shoulder reassuringly, and then he is alone again.

Alone with his aching, itching, blasted montrals.

Ezhno drags over a bucket, fills it at the hangar supply tap, and plunges his head in it, up to the wide white markings at his brow. Inverted, his lekku flop down across the durasteel-alloyed edges.

He sighs.

Comfort. At last.

His montrals have grown and widened into a flowing crown that rises a full one-and-a-half handspans above his head, now, and while they are as beautifully gold-striped as ever, at times they itch in pace with their growth.

That is, often.

The hangar techs work around the adolescent Togruta hunched into his bucket without comment or pause, far too used to their young coworker's strange antics.

Ezhno closes his eyes for a moment and loses himself in the cool relief of the water. His montrals seem to have been itching even more in the past day or so – tingling with something akin to disquiet. Ezhno is sure that if he were still a hunter like his ancestors were, crouching in the long grass of Shili's plains, he would call it a hunting instinct.

An image presents itself behind his closed eyelids, and he jerks back out of the water with a gasp. Droplets cling to his head-stripes like crystals to gold.

A writhing sarlacc, tentacles thrashing in agony.

The bane of his life for the last week, all because of a glimpse.

He had seen it – or so he thought – for a moment, in the communications centre a week ago, during the Senate incursion. But hours of work poring over the code records of that day had yielded nothing, save for the recorded sudden power-down and subsequent rebooting of his holo-console.

The head comm-officer had no ear for Ezhno's appeals, either. If there is an answer, Ezhno will not find it here.

And then the solution comes to him in a starburst of sudden clarity.

If cannot trace a hidden path from inside out, he must trace it from the outside.

Which means, of course, paying a visit to two friends of his, very, very far below.

As the end-of-shift light flashes overhead, Ezhno spares a wince. There is very little he dislikes more than the deeper underlevels of Coruscant, but for the sake of something as important as Temple security, he does not have much of a choice.

"Blimmin' ward of the Order," he mutters to himself as he empties the bucket into a slip-drain. "Blasted responsibilities."

(:~:)

The afternoon sun warms Huei Tori's headtresses where he stands two paces behind Chancellor Valorum's desk, back facing the panoramic transparisteel windows of the Chancellor's office. He cannot see the wide cityscape behind him or what is no doubt an expensively decorated office before him, but he can listen well enough, and what he does hear is extremely interesting indeed.

There had been a rustle of heavy fabric as the Chancellor rose to receive someone – someone he addressed as "Your Majesty" – a woman who spoke with a firm, yet warm voice.

A visiting monarch?

Now, when the Chancellor and unnamed queen are mostly through a conversation regarding Republic policy in a system called Stewjon – Huei has to force down a frown, here, because that sounds awfully familiar – there is a pause as the Chancellor takes a moment before speaking again.

"I was informed this morning that your son is one of the young Jedi responsible for resolving the situation during the Senate incursion a week ago – it must be quite something to be reunited with him in such a manner."

Huei's hands, folded into opposite robe-sleeves, tighten around each other.

Her son–

"It is somewhat strange, to return and find my son such fine young Jedi, yes," the woman says, voice holding no little pride. "I am a warrior myself, so I never expected Obi-Wan to be more a peacekeeper than anything else. But it seems he has taken to it well. As awful as these circumstances may seem, I am glad I was able to meet him."

Obi-Wan's mother.

Huei lets the Force seep into his senses and falls into the web of sound that flickers into shape around him. Valorum and the queen's voices echo and deepen into detail, and their Force-signatures, though weaker than Jedi, flare like tongues of flame in the darkness.

This queen feels like Obi-Wan, but cooler, sharper – while Obi-Wan is a window into the Force so clear it feels at times like one can reach through him into the Light itself, his mother is of tempered steel, frosted glass, fired in a forge of adversity. She speaks with a voice that holds notes of command, but also rings of long sorrow and strife. It is a voice that can sing children to sleep then command whole fleets with the next sentence.

Queen. Mother. Soldier.

And then, belatedly, Huei realizes that if this woman is Queen of Stewjon–

That would make Obi-Wan–

"And is the young crown prince doing well, your majesty?"

There is a musical laugh. "Well enough – he seems to have gotten over his shock at the title, for one thing. And do call me Alephi. I will be here for a while, but not for politics, and we are hardly strangers in government, Chancellor."

"Very well, then, Alephi," the Chancellor says fondly. "I wish you a pleasant stay on Coruscant."

"Thank you, Chancellor."

A squeaking of chair-legs – the Chancellor's robes rustle as he stands, but Alephi's are the merest whisper.

"Then good afternoon to you, Chancellor."

"And you."

Alephi's steps are muted by the carpet, but Huei hears them pause and swivel in place, all the same.

"My apologies," she says, calmly. "Might I speak to your aide for a moment?"

"Young padawan Tori here? Certainly. He was quite the hero a week ago, too – though I only became acquainted with him this morning."

Huei notes how light her tread is as she approaches him, and is somewhat surprised when her voice sounds out from above him – she must be very tall indeed.

"Might I ask your name?"

"Huei Tori, ma'am," he states clearly, inclining his head.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Huei. I'm Alephi. Do you know my son, Obi-Wan?"

"Yes," Huei replies. "He is…a good friend." Here he stops, unsure how best to continue. How does one explain to a friend's mother that said friend only became so after an experience as horrible as that at the Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children, and cemented only after they tried their best to kill each other with lightsabers, one in bitter grief and one in an effort to teach a lesson?

Huei knows he owes Obi-Wan much, yes. Too much to be said here.

He controls his expression before it can reveal too much.

But perhaps Alephi is too much like her son to be deceived. A hand touches Huei's shoulder lightly, and slips away again before he can speak.

"I see," Alephi says, quietly. "I am glad my son has friends like you. It is not good to be always alone." She does not specify whom she speaks of.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Call me Alephi. I hope we will have the chance to speak again."

Warmth flickers in Huei's chest. "I would be glad to."

"Until then, Huei."

"I come to serve," Huei says, bowing a little deeper than he had before, out of newfound respect.

When Alephi is gone, the Chancellor's chair creaks as Valorum eases himself back into it and calls his secretary to give them five minutes' break.

Huei stands still, at the Jedi equivalent of parade rest, and waits to be spoken to.

"I'm starting to get old," Valorum grumbles good-naturedly. "It must be lovely not to have cracking joints, Padawan Tori."

"Indeed," Huei responds evenly, deciding to keep any other comments to himself. He wonders at the image he imagines of the chancellor now, dredged up from old holonet viewings, before he lost his sight – whether this image of a grandfatherly man with a perspicacious mind is what truly is before him.

"Might I ask a personal question?"

Now that is unexpected. The actual question itself, not so much.

Given that, Huei decides to speed up the conversation.

"You wish to know how I lost my sight," he states, as confirmation.

"If you don't mind, of course."

"It is of no consequence, Chancellor. I lost my sight a year ago, on a mission to Ventrux. I assume you will have seen the report from the Jedi Council. The discoveries found seemed important enough that you should have been informed immediately."

"Indeed I was," Valorum says, with a hint of regret. "The report stated that two young Jedi were gravely injured, one permanently. I was sorry to hear it. Now that you are here, allow me to express my gratitude your service to the Republic."

"My thanks, Chancellor." The politician's sentiment sounds a trifle too script-like for Huei's taste, but then again, there it not much one could possibly say in a conversation such as this. There are certain phrases too often-used in politics so to be unavoidable.

"But I wager you didn't expect to be reassigned to me?" Valorum says, a trace of amusement in his tone.

"It is an honour."

The amusement in Valorum's Force-signature is a little less faint. "An excellent answer – though I suppose you don't miss Minister Taa in the slightest. I certainly wouldn't."

"We come to serve."

"Hmm."

Huei pauses. "Is Minister Taa well?" he enquires, innocently.

"He's on leave for the rest of the week, for his poor nerves," Valorum says, dispassionately.

"Ah."

"…Remind me to bring you with me when I welcome him back."

A hint of a grin pulls at Huei's lips. "Yes, Chancellor."

The Force warms, if just a little.

"Administration-wise, there's only one more thing you should know. You're my only young aide this week. The other is serving a Senate apprenticeship as the last part of his diplomatic training. He had to return to his home planet for a family emergency, but he should be back soon – you might have heard of him, actually. Very prominent political family."

Huei tilts his head with interest. "Oh? What is his name?"

"Bail Organa."

"I'm afraid I don't know him."

"Ah, nevermind then. But you'll work very well together, I'm sure. You're both very admirable young men."

"Thank you, sir."

"And now," Valorum says with a longsuffering groan, "Our next appointment." And with that, he comms his secretary to let the next official in.

Huei straightens, and listens.

This is much better than Orn Free Taa. Much better indeed.

(:~:)

Ezhno pulls on a hooded cloak over his unmarked clothes as he steps into the Temple Plaza. The hood is somewhat too small for his montrals, now, and the tunic and trousers a little short, but it will do. His usual uniform marking him as ward of the Order would be a poor choice for an investigative trip to the underlevels.

Ezhno edges through the crowds that bustle along the thoroughfares until he reaches an alleyway a little ways off the edge of the plaza, where a decrepit turbolift sits partially hidden from view.

Heaving the rusted grate closed behind him, Ezhno punches the button for level 1102. And then the next couple levels directly below that, for good measure.

The first time he had used this turbolift, it had been with Quinlan Vos. That particular trip had not ended well. At all. There had been much screaming. Much running. Much crying.

He had ended up sobbing into Mace Windu's tabards. Not that he has told anyone about that, of course.

The depths of Coruscant hold more twisted creatures than the wildest reaches of the galaxy.

The fact that the turbolift has since been serviced doesn't diminish the niggling fear at the back of his mind in the slightest, but Ezhno stands resolutely and feels the tremor of hydraulics under his feet as the turbolift begins to descend.

Ezhno breathes easier once the turbolift deposits him at the correct level, into a dimly-lit alleyway covered in a haze of secondhand Spice-smoke, and heavy, 'cycled air. He immediately regrets drawing in a deeper breath.

The streets glow dirtily in yellowish strip-lights, and the ground below his boots is so thick with grime it seems to swallow what little light there is whole. Ezhno keeps his head down and gives any other creature that passes a wide berth. Most are as covered up as he is, and so do not look so much like sentients so much as mummified shapes that loom out of the smoke-wreathed paths.

After far too many paces for his liking, he reaches an alcove and ducks inside. The keypad brightens under his long fingers and then suddenly, he stands in a low-ceilinged room filled with flashing neon lights, bright holo-screens, and multiple species of young sentients. Synth music reverberates through his boot soles as he crosses the holo-game den.

He cannot find the person he seeks, and so he edges over to where a Togruta girl a year or two older than him has just stepped off a dance console.

"'Ey, Fyrnock," he shouts, raising his voice for her benefit.

She turns towards him, azure eyes blinking at his cloaked getup. "Ezhno," she says. "That was loud enough that I wouldn't be surprised if they could hear you on the surface."

Ezhno sighs, and uses less force as he speaks this time. "I can't tell 'ow loud I'm speakin', like."

She squints at him. "What?" she says, leaning forward and opening her mouth wide as she enunciates. Shouting, obviously.

Ezhno rolls his eyes and jerks his head towards the back room, which, he knows, despite not being quiet by most people's standards, should be quieter than here.

Once the door closes behind them, Ezhno repeats his sentence.

"Oh," Fyrnock says. "Can't be helped. What're you here for?"

"Where's Krayt?"

Fyrnock picks at the sleeve of her nerf-hide jacket. "My bantha-headed brother's a couple thousand levels up, somewhere. He's got a job hacking into a fancy-schmancy shop of some sort. Should keep this place running for the next three months, with his share."

"Blast it," Ezhno mutters.

Fyrnock has the decency to wait until he looks up again before speaking. "Need to use the access console?"

"Yeah."

"Knock yourself out. With Krayt out, you'll have it to yourself for a bit."

"Thanks. 'Preciate it."

She pauses and stares above his head. "And what in blasted stars happened to your montrals?"

"…I've been…scratching them?" Ezhno says, wincing.

Fyrnock doesn't open her mouth, but her nostrils flare with her next breath. Ezhno is sure she is snorting.

She storms off, and comes back just as quickly with a container of…something. Ezhno yelps as she grabs the back of his neck, forces his head down, and slathers something cool and slimy onto his much-abused montrals.

Ezhno forces down a hiss as her callouses nick a particularly bad spot. The hand on his neck softens a little at that, but then she finishes the job brusquely and screws the jar shut again.

Through squinted eyes, Ezhno sees her say with an averted gaze, "Come down here if they start itching again. That's a paste from our homeworld. There isn't much of it around but this should be good for a couple of days. Krayt nearly tore off his montrals when they were sprouting too."

"Thanks," Ezhno says, blinking. His montrals sting, but with the coolness of medicine, not pain.

Fyrnock turns to go, but not before she jabs a calloused finger at his face and warns, "I'll have you know I really like this place. Don't do anything with that console that'll get tracked back to us."

Ezhno grins widely. "'Course not."

Two hours and fourteen dead-ends later, Ezhno has almost worn a hole in his boot-tips from scraping them across the floor.

It is as he thought: Temple security is impossible to access from an outside network. Durasteel walls built with century upon century of code, too deep, wide, high, and thick to pierce with the code-equivalent of a turbolaser.

Unless…

Unless the code walked in the front door, so to speak.

Piggybacking a Jedi Master's code, with the encryption masking the extra.

Ezhno pushes back from the holoscreen and slams a fist into the table in victory. The whole desk shudders.

Fyrnock pokes her head back into the room and narrows her eyes at him, montrals blue-white shadows in the dim lighting.

He makes an apologetic motion with the hand not smarting from the impact.

She skewers him with a look that screams I'm-watching-you before ducking out and closing the door again.

Ezhno's happy bubble continues for approximately five seconds before his brain catches up to his euphoria and screeches to a halt.

The only way to prove his theory is to attempt it.

Sithspit.

Ezhno reaches into his sock and removes a code-chip. He stares at it for a moment before inserting it into the console's access port.

"'M sorry, Master Jinn," he mutters, into empty air. "Please don't skin me alive. I promise I didn' nick it fer anything other than fun."

With Qui-Gon Jinn's access codes flickering over the holoscreen, Ezhno begins to type. He hopes if he is caught, his status as ward of the Order will only result in many, many extra chores. He can handle crèche duty well enough, if need be.

He chases binary trails across the virtual world of the holonet, jumping servers like a starfighter bobbing on the currents of hyperspace. He travels hundreds of light-years in the space of seconds, routing his signal through a green-white forest of holo-numbers. Eventually, when he hopes he has done enough loops of the galaxy to thoroughly confound any attempts to trace his origin, he turns back towards Coruscant like a starfighter attempting to drop into atmosphere from hyperspace without any deceleration at all, and makes the jump.

For a moment, Ezhno is tricked into believing he has succeeded. He sees a flash of the Jedi starbird, flaring its wings across his screen as it does every time he sets up his console in the Temple communications centre.

And then suddenly the starbird is gone, swallowed whole by the red maw of a snarling sarlacc.

Ezhno barely suppresses a shriek as he throws himself back from his holoscreen, which flickers and trembles with a horrible stop-motion of tentacles and teeth.

Fyrnock bursts in, slamming the door against the wall so hard that Ezhno feels the reverberation through his spine from where he is sprawled on the floor.

"What. Did. You. Do," she directs at him, baring teeth in what must surely be a hiss.

"Wha'?" Ezhno says, thoroughly bewildered.

She grabs him by the collar, and pulls him closer until her snarling face is a handsbreadth from his. It is somewhat difficult to lip-read when her face fills his entire visual field.

"The games are all down. People are running. Did you–" Fyrnock stops, suddenly, cocking her head to the side. Listening to something. Ezhno presses a hand to the ground, feels the shaking of loud words through his wrist.

But where from? The console?

Fyrnock turns an ice-blue gaze back to him. He swallows, nervously. Her hands are still fisted in his collar, her face only barely beginning to relax out of a growl. Her white facial markings are still all fierce elegance.

"You're coming with me," Fyrnock says, slowly. The shapes of the words on her lips are disjointed, somehow. She is unsettled.

Ezhno lets her shut off the holoscreen and pull him back through the ghostly, flickering game-room and into the streets again. She snags a hood out the back of her coat-collar as he hurriedly raises his own.

They walk briskly through the labyrinthine streets, back towards the turbolift. Fyrnock punches a level down, and in a few short seconds she is dragging him though another short alleyway, and is knocking at a door.

Ezhno blinks. He can tell she is knocking and not hammering because there is no accompanying tremble through the duracrete ground; but he has never, in the year he has known Fyrnock, see her knock politely at anything.

He glances up at her, only for her to deliberately turn her face away from him as she says something. A passphrase.

That she obviously does not want him to know.

The door slides open to pitch darkness.

Fyrnock practically potato-sacks him in, no matter that he is almost taller than her, now.

Two winding corridors, and then a high-ceilinged chamber lit with garish white light. A figure wreathed in a hooded, sable cloak sits at a pitted durasteel desk on the far end, with his boots crossed at the ankles on the surface. Two massive Trandoshan guards stand on either side of the desk, hefting vibroblades longer than Ezhno's forearm.

The figure makes a motion with a hand, and Fyrnock finally drops Ezhno's wrist. He rubs at it and scowls at her, opening his mouth to tell her a few choice things – and then he sees her face.

The white diamonds of her facial markings are blanched further in fear. She holds it well, but her lips are pinched.

Swallowing his words, Ezhno turns back to their host.

The hooded head tilts to one side, languidly, and Fyrnock shifts. By the time Ezhno turns towards her, she has already finished speaking.

The hooded figure seems to pause for a moment, in contemplation. And then it raises a gloved hand and pulls back its hood.

It reveals a face of a dark-haired human male, not so young as to truly be called a youth, and yet not old enough for lines to have formed on his face; and quite a handsome face it would be, too, were it not for the scar high on one pale cheekbone, shaped like a broken circle burned into his skin.

Dark blue eyes examine Ezhno, impassively.

"Your friend tells me you're deaf," the man states. Ezhno has to squint in the glaring white light to read his words.

"Yep," Ezhno replies, trying to sound casual.

"You're the one who tried to hack into the Temple, then."

Ezhno opts for another approach than cooperation. "Who're you?"

The man slams a fist onto the table, making it jump, and as it would seem, Fyrnock, too. "I asked you a question," he says, eyes glittering.

"I'm sayin' nothin'," Ezhno counters.

The Trandoshan on the right flicks open a switchblade, casually.

Ezhno keeps his eyes on the bright steel. "Havin' given it some thought, an' condsiderin' all my options, I migh'," he says, conversationally. "I tried ter hack inter the Temple, yeah."

A gloved hand waves at him to continue.

"I did it fer fun, like," Ezhno says.

"For fun?" that gaze holds him, makes him unable to look away from this man and his deep blue eyes and his smirking way of speech.

"Yeah," Ezhno repeats, confidently.

"…The truth, now," the man says, not moving his lips much at all – the vowels must be very clipped, indeed.

"That were the truth."

The man is suddenly on his feet, and smashing both palms flat against the table. The impact lances through the thin floor and up Ezhno's ankles.

"Let's do that again," he man says, smiling, now, with lips thin and mirthless as his gloved hands curl into fists on the grimy table.

Casting his mind around desperately for an idea, Ezhno makes a gamble. Possibly the last gamble of his life, if he has guessed wrongly.

"I…I wanted ter see if I could hack somethin', soemthin' as amazin' as what those people who hacked the Senate buildin' did," Ezhno says, stuttering. It is not difficult. His heart is already threatening to jump out of his chest.

That broken circle scar stretches as the man's grin widens. Ezhno half expects to see fangs underneath.

"And you chose the Jedi Temple?"

"Go big or go home, righ?" Ezhno says, jauntily.

The man watches him for a moment, and then slowly lowers himself back into his chair again, though he does not place his feet on the table; instead, he leans forward, eyes glittering.

"And this code you hitched a ride on to get in…where did you come by it?"

Oh, sithspit.

Ezhno nearly flounders completely, but then he settles on a half-truth and forges ahead. "I used'ta go ter a school on Ventrux," he begins. He doesn't miss how the man sits up a little straighter at that. "The Zan Arbor 'cademy fer Gifted Children. I met a kid there last year, like – 'e turned out ter be a hotshot Jedi of some sort, but I managed ter hack his teacher's comlink while they were there. Got the codes and all, but fat lot of use they turned out ter be, until I tried doin' somethin' crazy with them."

"And why are you not at the academy now?" the man asks, pinning him in place with a perceptive gaze.

"Got expelled, didn' I?" Ezhno says breezily. "Hacked aroun' too much. Been hackin' here ever since." Please don't give me away, Fyrnock, he begs, silently.

"What do you think of the Jedi Order?"

"The Jedi?" – Ezhno almost shoots himself in the foot here by simply calling The Order, because that would be a dead giveaway – "They're hypocrites," he fibs, hoping that Fyrnock has a good poker face.

"Hypocrites." The man regards him calmly.

"Yeah," Ezhno says, warming to the idea. "They take kids away. They serve a corrupt Senate, like, an' I don't think they pay for anythin'. Not like us workin' people."

The man rises, and looks to Ezhno's right. "Leave us," he says.

Fyrnock makes an automatic bow, turns, and runs.

Ezhno suppresses a shudder as the man steps closer to him.

"What is your name?"

"Ezhno," Ezhno says, without thinking. Blast it!

"He who walks alone," the man comments.

"Yeah," Ezhno says, surprised. "What's yer name?"

The man straightens further, eyes burning.

Filled with a sudden calm, Ezhno forges on, unheeding of the danger. "I mean, I've introduced myself. You should too, righ'?"

The man regards him for a long moment. "Call me Sarlacc," he says.

Oh.

Ezhno thinks of the red-painted sarlacc, frozen across a flickering screen.

Sarlacc swivels in a swirl of dark fabric and returns to his chair. "I think you could be some use to me, Ezhno," he says.

"Wha?"

"Your friend, Fyrnock, is of little use to the organization I represent. She is a recruiter, nothing more. But someone of your skills, I could gladly use. Much like her brother Krayt."

"'Ow so?"

Sarlacc tilts his head. "If you truly believe the Republic is as corrupt as you have said, you would wish to do something about it. Or are you too afraid?"

"I wanna do somethin'," Ezhno retorts. What am I supposed to say, no?

"Then join us."

"You?"

"We are called the Cruorven."

Ezhno's eyes widen beyond his control. Fortunately, Sarlacc seems to expect it.

"Come here," Sarlacc says.

Ezhno edges closer.

"Closer, still," Sarlacc rolls his eyes.

Ezhno jumps as Sarlacc grabs his wrist in one hand and a wickedly sharp-looking instrument in the other.

"What's that?" Ezhno squeaks.

"An automatic tattoo-imprinter," Sarlacc explains, mouth moving quickly in his obvious impatience. "We are marking you as our own."

"Do I hafta?" The words leave Ezhno's mouth before he can stop them.

Sarlacc's eyes slide slowly up from Ezhno's wrist to his face.

Ezhno blinks rapidly, and swallows once. "Okay," he stammers.

There is a flash of heat against the back of his wrist, and then he has a black-inked Sarlacc howling on his skin.

"Come down to the game den in two days' time," Sarlacc instructs him. "Fyrnock will take you where I want you. And don't bother hacking the Jedi Temple again." Those pale lips part in a smile. "We've already done so."

"Yes, sir," Ezhno says. What?

"Now go."

Ezhno turns, and sprints, feeling the burn of the fresh tattoo on the end of his forearm like the mark of a rod.

In the white-lit room, Sarlacc sends his guards away and flicks open a datapad. He traces the code there with one finger, and then reaches up to touches the scar on his cheek.

A hoarse whisper escapes his lips, broken and burning, like the ring that he pressed to his cheekbone over ten years ago.

"Qui-Gon Jinn."

(:~:)

Qui-Gon waits for his padawan at the Temple's Western hangar, with the sunset of Coruscant Prime washing the hangar floor with a sheen of golden lacquer.

He stands just in the shadow of the hangar rim, with the sea of light at his feet. To step forward into it would drench him in bright luminance, leave him raw and exposed. This he cannot do.

So Qui-Gon folds his hands into opposite sleeves, frozen at the edge of this bright sea, and calls on the Force to calm the illogical disquiet that fills his mind.

A point of silver light in the distance coalesces into a sleek silver-blue diplomatic transport, that slips into the hangar on soundless repulsors and settles into an empty dock as though it were turning in silk.

The first down the ramp is a russet-haired Jedi padawan, who looks up and zeroes in on Qui-Gon's position with barely a scanning glance, drawn like a ship towards its homing beacon.

Qui-Gon takes a step into the bright sunset, towards Obi-Wan, and then halts mid-step when he registers what is in Obi-Wan's arms. The light level stops at Qui-Gon's waist.

"Hello, little one," he says, smiling despite himself

Kifi stares up at him with wide eyes – he must seem like a broad shouldered giant – and buries her face back into Obi-Wan's shoulder.

A grin flickers across Obi-Wan's face, almost shyly – and he slips out a hand to proffer a sheet of flimsy, a line of letters already written upon it.

This is my younger sister, Kifi-Ra. Or Kifi.

"Hello, Kifi," Qui-Gon intones, gravely.

Kifi still has her face hidden, but a tattletale giggle escapes from the general area of Obi-Wan's padawan braid.

And then a double set of footsteps approach, and Qui-Gon lifts his head.

"Minister Kenobi," he greets, impeccably.

"Master Jinn," Ben-Avi returns, with a short bow of his own. "May I introduce my monarch and wife, Alephi?"

Monarch and wife.

"Your majesty," Qui-Gon inclines his head. This, he had known – but he is yet unsure whether his agreement to allow Obi-Wan to be told by family was the right decision.

A surreptitious glance at his padawan reveals that is very likely was.

"Master Jinn," Alephi greets. "Please, Alephi would be fine."

Qui-Gon notes with interest that the hilts of two short swords jut up over her shoulders. "If you would follow me?"

There is a moment, when he turns to lead the way from the hangar, that Obi-Wan's Force-signature wavers. This is not accompanied by the swish of fabric – Obi-Wan is too well-trained for that – but it is obvious that for a moment, Obi-Wan had almost stepped into his regular place a step to the right and behind his master.

And then Obi-Wan had remembered the toddler in his arms, and so slowed his steps to walk closer to his parents.

This is not surprising. Qui-Gon knows it is not surprising. It is even…diplomatically correct, in a way.

But it feels exquisitely wrong.

He feels like a star without its planet. Or as if a passing anomaly had pulled the planetoid away, leaving him alone at the centre of an empty expanse.

Qui-Gon squashes the thought with a savage wrenching of his shields, and feels Obi-Wan turn towards him in the Force, inquisitively.

With effort, Qui-Gon ignores this for the entirety of their short walk.

(:~:)

Ezhno does not dare return immediately to the Temple.

He pays a quick visit to the game den again, tells Fyrnock on no uncertain terms that she must not reveal who he is to this Sarlacc – and then practically flees back to the surface, using a turbolift other than the one he arrived in. This one deposits him a good distance away from the Temple, though in the same district.

Ezhno turns to face Coruscant Prime as it slips toward the horizon, and heads towards it with a firm pace.

He wanders the districts for a good long while, slipping on and off hover-trains, ducking into a market stall to exchange his cloak and a couple of credits for a larger one that changes the shape of his head completely, and then eventually, as the last light slips away, he enters a diner at the edge of Coco Town.

A besalisk with a booming voice to match the girth of his belly (Ezhno can tell because the other patrons flinch as he speaks) directs him towards an empty seat at the bar by pointing.

The besalisk says something, once Ezhno is seated.

Ezhno blinks at the besalisk's throbbing gullet and thin lips, too exhausted to focus properly. "S'rry, could you repeat tha'? I'm deaf."

The besalisk shrugs and repeats the sentence.

Ezhno stares, neck aching.

Nope. Not happening. Comphension level: nil.

The besalisk holds up both hands in a bear-with-me signal, and says something different, this time moving his thin, flat lips exaggeratedly slowly.

"Ayeeeham daaaeks?" Ezhno ventures, after a moment.

The besalisk's gullet inflates and deflates as he throws his head back and laughs. The Twi'lek sitting two seats down actually grabs his ears in pain.

"Ayeeham – I'm," Ezhno says. "I'm…Dacks? Is Dacks yer name?"

The besalisk scrawls three aurebesh letters into the grimy tabletop with one massive finger.

"Dex," Ezhno grins, tiredly. "Please t'meet you, Dex. I'm Ezhno."

Dex shakes his hand with a slimy one of his own – best not thought about – and serves him up a good helping of caf, without any further questions. Perhaps Ezhno looks like he needs it.

Ezhno glances around him once, decides nobody is watching him – and slides a hand into his pocket for his comm.

He flicks it open to a text-based function and types a message. Hopefully the recipient isn't busy. Jedi masters are always busy, but this one in particular seems to always be everywhere at once.

A napkin slides over to him, and he reaches for it with a mumble of thanks – and then freezes when he reads the line scrawled across it.

That's a Jedi-issue comm unit you got there. You a padawan, kid? I know a couple Jedi myself. Master Jinn, most closely.

Qui-Gon! Ezhno looks up just in time to catch Dex's wink. He considers this for a moment, and decides to go with his gut. He shakes his head. Not a Jedi.Ward, he mouths.

The next time a napkin is placed in front of him along with a stylus, it reads:

You look like you went five rounds with a Trandoshan, kid.

I might be being tailed, Ezhno writes back. I've just contacted Master Windu. It'll be fine.

Dex serves him a helping of cake, with a note that says, Now isn't that unexpected! Windu's kid! But tell that blasted nerfherder Jinn to comm me when you get back. It's been too long. And nobody's staring at you weird, kid, so you might have lost your tail if you had one.

Ezhno digs hungrily into what is possibly the worst Jawa-cake he has ever tasted in his life, and smiles around his fork.

(:~:)

"Thank you for taking care of Obi-Wan, Master Jinn," Ben-Avi says.

Minutes into the conversation, all seems to be going well. They are seated in one of the Temple's less formal receiving-rooms, and Obi-Wan is once more seated beside Qui-Gon, as he should be, facing Alephi and Ben-Avi. Kifi toddles between the two parties.

"You should thank the crèchemasters more than I," Qui-Gon replies, a tinge of humour in his voice. "But I could have asked for no better student these past two years than Obi-Wan."

"We have spoken with Obi-Wan," Alephi says. "He has agreed to relinquish his title to Kifi after his fifteenth birthday."

Qui-Gon glances to his side with a questioning eyebrow.

Obi-Wan nods once.

Qui-Gon smiles, letting his approval spill into the Force. "Very well. I am glad that is settled."

"As are we," Ben-Avi agrees. Then suddenly: "May I have a word in private, Master Jinn?"

Alephi sends her husband a perceptive look. It is not entirely of approval.

"Certainly," Qui-Gon murmurs, rising. "The Temple gardens are a short corridor away. We may speak there, if you wish."

"That would be appreciated."

Obi-Wan watches Ben-Avi and Qui-Gon leave with an expression somewhat like a worried loth-cat.

"Stars," Alephi says, in the ensuing silence. "Obi-Wan, did Ben-Avi mention anything about this to you while I was with the Chancellor?"

Obi-Wan shakes his head.

"Then let us hope my fool of a husband will not do anything stupid," Alephi mutters; and then she smiles at him. "But we shall wait together, shall we, dear?"

For a moment, Obi-Wan is reminded so forcefully of Tahl that he freezes in place. But Tahl is elsewhere in the Temple, and the woman sitting opposite him is not she.

And Ben-Avi is not Qui-Gon.

And then Kifi runs into his knee, and he is too occupied to follow that train of thought further.

He is not aware that Alephi watches him, and keeps her thoughts to herself.

(:~:)

"Obi-Wan adores you," Ben-Avi says, bluntly, once the two men are surrounded by rustling foliage. The Temple gardens glow softly around them, lit at tasteful intervals by flameless lamps studded among the trees.

Qui-Gon simply nods. It is not the way of the Jedi, but it is the truth.

"And you love him as a son," Ben-Avi continues. "I can see it."

"Yes," Qui-Gon replies. "I do."

"That is good," Ben-Avi says, turning away. His greying ponytail brushes by the back of his collar. "I am glad you were there when my wife and I could not be."

Qui-Gon is not usually patient. It may be one of his favourite words to use when he teaches, but it is often… difficult…to execute, himself. But in this instance, he stands, and waits for the Stewjon-born man to speak.

"Forgive me for asking this," Ben-Avi begins, and there is a catch in his voice that echoes with an old bitterness – "I know I have no right to ask after Obi-Wan's care, given that we have known him truly for no more than an afternoon at most – but it would greatly ease my mind if I knew he was cared for well."

"That is understandable," Qui-Gon replies calmly, even as he stamps down on the irritation that rises unbidden within himself. "Please rest assured we have given him the best upbringing we have to offer."

The Order-bred phrasing does not appear to sit well with Ben-Avi. He swivels to face Qui-Gon again, long coat swinging at his knees. "What about his voice, then?" he says.

"The Temple healers were unable to discern the cause," Qui-Gon says. "But he has managed extremely well. He is able to communicate with his friends without too much trouble – and he has an apprenticeship bond with me, which facilitates our conversations greatly."

"And how do you accomplish that?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Converse," Ben-Avi says, his voice devoid of emotion.

Qui-Gon frowns, perplexed. "I speak. Obi-Wan writes. Oftentimes we may not have to complete sentences; our bond communicates enough in impressions, emotions, and images that the conversation proceeds quite naturally."

"So it's true, then. Obi-Wan doesn't know Galactic sign language."

Sign language.

Qui-Gon remembers what it is, certainly. The phrase appeared in his linguistics textbook enough times for that, and he has seen different versions of it in use in some cultures beyond the core systems, specific to other planetary languages.

But Galactic sign language?

That is something long-gone, almost archaic, from before vocabulators were invented, before throat implants, translator droids–

"He does not," Qui-Gon confirms.

Ben-Avi is silent for a good long while.

Then he sucks in a breath – a long, barely-controlled inhalation, the non-Jedi version of a steadying breath. Qui-Gon is on the verge of a few of those, himself.

"I am sorry, Master Jinn," Ben-Avi says, voice tremoring slightly, "but that is unacceptable."

"Explain, if you please," Qui-Gon says, quietly, as his hands clench inside the wide sleeves of his cloak.

"Communication is a two-way process," Ben-Avi says as he begins to pace, possibly without even realising it.

Qui-Gon tracks this movement with sharp eyes.

"There is something extremely important about being able to respond immediately when one is spoken to," Ben-Avi continues, words tumbling over each other with the rising of his voice. "Not simply with images or impressions – I mean to speak, and be listened to immediately."

"Is that not what we already practice?" Qui-Gon queries, evenly.

"No," Ben-Avi hisses – and his voice has well and truly lost all calm, now – "It is most certainly not."

"Obi-Wan has expressed no wish to do otherwise."

"Because he doesn't know that sign language exists. I asked him, today. He hadn't the faintest idea."

Qui-Gon watches, his face a granite mask.

Ben-Avi is still glaring at him.

"Let me ask you a few questions, if I may, Master Jinn," Ben-Avi says, straightening.

"You may," Qui-Gon says, evenly.

"Does Obi-Wan ever speak – write you notes, without you initiating a conversation first?"

"Yes."

"Let me rephrase. Does he do so often?"

"…No," Qui-Gon murmurs, after a pause. Something is beginning to twist in his chest – a mixture of too many thoughts and emotions to identify. He does not like it.

"Do you ever feel that he shortens his answers or hides his true response simply because he does not wish others to wait for him to finish writing?"

"Not in particular, but Obi-Wan is never one to write unrestrainedly."

"Right." Ben-Avi's teeth are gritted. "Stars, I'm going to–"

He halts. Closes his eyes. Masters his control with tangible effort.

Qui-Gon is impressed, despite himself. And the look of intense concentration on the man's face reminded him of his padawan's, except perhaps lined with more years. Qui-Gon's fists unclench in his sleeves, if only barely. "There is the Force," he says. "Jedi communicate in many more ways than speech. As a non-Force-sensitive, I am aware it is difficult to understand."

"The Fo-" Ben-Avi breaks himself off. Blinks at his boots. "I thank you for your explanation, Master Jinn," he says, through gritted teeth. "But I would think I understand the communication issues of the son who I was the first to realise could not speak."

That one little phrase – my son – takes all of Qui-Gon's impeccable diplomatic control, Jedi training, and stoic reserve, and smashes it all to smithereens.

Rage comes frighteningly quickly.

"No," he says quietly, so softly that it is barely audible.

"Excuse me?" Ben-Avi's eyes flash darker blue, and for a terrifying moment he looks as Obi-Wan might if he fell, years in the future, with fury unchecked, power growing with the length of his shadow.

"You did not raise him," Qui-Gon murmurs, louder. "If there is anyone who understands, it is I. Not you."

"Obi-Wan is not your son," Ben-Avi says. Cuttingly.

And it cuts indeed, straight into a heart that Qui-Gon did not know was ever bleeding.

"Nor is he yours," Qui-Gon says, lips white, and oh, though the Force is screaming at him to stop, it feels for the moment perfect, even as the wrongness of the words leaving his lips rips a hole in his heart.

It does not feel right. And he knows it. But he does not stop.

Ben-Avi stares at him, and then stalks closer, knuckles white–

–and a lithe figure barrels in between them, forcing them apart.

Qui-Gon reels back as a familiar Force-presence breaks through the howling storm-clouds wreathing his mind, giving him clarity as the first morning after the storm of the year.

He lowers his gaze from Ben-Avi's red-rimmed glare to his apprentice's blue eyes, calm and determined in the roiling mess that is the Force around them, but flickering with fear in their azure depths.

And guilt crashes down upon him.

Obi-Wan senses it, because his mouth spasms into something other than a bloodless line, and he turns to Ben-Avi with a restraining hand raised. The sentiment is obvious.

Do not touch him.

Ben-Avi stands there for a moment, expression blank, before shock suddenly dawns on his face and he stares down at his trembling hands.

"I'm…I'm sorry," he stammers. "I don't know…"

"I must apologise, as well," Qui-Gon says, voice rough. He bows fully at the waist, until his forehead is parallel to the ground. "I…"

"Gentlemen."

Both men turn towards the newcomer – one with apprehension, the other with resignation.

Alephi's face, at this moment, holds all the proof needed for her station, rank, and command. The small child she holds does nothing to diminish this effect.

Then, like a flipping current, her face melts into a smile. "Master Jinn," she says, with perfect propriety, "I believe it would serve us well if we rescheduled our meeting."

Qui-Gon takes a moment to find his tongue. "Yes. Perhaps that would be best," he admits.

"Obi-Wan, dear, I will be at the Senate tomorrow when you arrive."

Obi-Wan bows, and receives a gentle touch on the cheek for it.

"Husband," Alephi says, as she turns to go. There is durasteel in her voice.

Ben-Avi follows, without comment; but not before he places a hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder that lingers for a moment longer than strictly necessary.

Obi-Wan glances at the hand on his tabard, and nods, imperceptibly.

And then they are gone.

Qui-Gon folds himself down into the grass, and looks up at his padawan.

Obi-Wan does not kneel with him.

"Padawan," Qui-Gon begins, with a voice that is more a plea than anything.

Obi-Wan watches him, for a moment. Wordlessly.

Always wordlessly.

And that, Qui-Gon realises, is where as a master, he has always been wrong.

Obi-Wan pivots on one heel, parade-perfect, and slips out of the gardens.

Qui-Gon remains where he is for a long time, kneeling in the sweet-scented grass, until the night-gardening droids come and shoo him away.

Chapter Text

Dexter Jettster is wiping down the counter after the last of his usual dinner crowd have ducked back out into the CoCo Town night when the door is pushed open, hard.

"A bit late for dinner, ain'tcha? But come in and make yaself comfortable," Dex calls, without looking up.

When he does, he finds himself face-to-face with a frowning Korun Jedi.

If a Besalisk could startle, Dex certainly does. "For stars' sake, warn an old Besalisk like meself," he gargles, clapping a gargantuan hand over his heart.

"You are Dexter Jettster," the Jedi says, dark eyes flashing.

"Qui-Gon's friend, yeah," Dex replies. "And you are, Master Jedi?"

"Mace Windu."

"Ah, Qui-Gon's mentioned ya! We're both friends 'f his, then–"

"There was a Togruta boy here," Mace cuts him off. "Mid-to-late teens. Gold head-stripes."

"Young Mister Ezhno stepped outside 'bout 'alf an hour ago t'wait for you," Dex says. "'E seemed a bit jittery."

Mace scrutinises him for a long while, brown eyes unreadable. "Ezhno is not outside. Or anywhere in the general vicinity. I have swept the area."

"That ain't right," Dex mutters. "'E was dead set on meetin' you. Said somethin' 'bout there bein' a breakthrough in information of some sort."

"What information?" Mace's voice drops further, into a growl rumbles like thunder.

"'E didn' want to say in front of me. Looked frightened outta 'is wits, though. Speakin' of which," – Dex leans closer, even though the diner is nearly empty – "You're aware I do…information gatherin', on the side?"

Mace doesn't even blink. "Qui-Gon has mentioned it before, yes."

Dex nods. "Well, I couldn't help but notice that Ezhno had a fresh tattoo on his arm. Nearly hidden by his sleeve. Took me a moment, but I recognized it."

Mace watches, impassive.

"It was the Howling Sarlacc," Dex murmurs in the throaty half-warble that is a Besalisk whisper. "The mark of the Cruorven. Half the underground's afire about it."

Mace does not react for a long moment. When he next speaks, his voice has lowered even further. "You are sure," he says.

"Yes."

"Then I would ask you to…make enquires, where you can. The Order will conduct our own search, as well. We must find him."

"Will do. Is young Ezhno in any trouble? 'E seems mighty young to be a contact for the Order."

Mace has already half-turned to go, but when he turns, his dark eyes are ablaze.

"No," he says, quietly. "He is not a contact."

Dex frowns. "Then–"

"He is one of our charges. As such, we are responsible for him." Mace inclines his head. "I will brief Qui-Gon on this development. Contact him should you have new intel."

Dex opens his mouth, but the tall Korun has already slipped out into the Coruscant night.

"Blast it," Dex mutters, as he turns towards the back room, and the comm unit there.

(:~:)

The High Jedi Council rarely convenes at such a late hour – but it is even rarer for Mace Windu to call for a meeting on such urgent terms, and so cryptically.

When the twelve chairs are filled and the door is shut, Yoda turns to his former padawan. "Begin now, we will. Why assembled us here, have you?"

Outwardly, Mace Windu does not exude anything other than his usual calm power; but there is something in the way the stormclouds of his Force-signature are curled in on themselves that suggests urgency.

"I do not know if my fellow Councillors remember one of our young Wards of the Order, Ezhno."

Dooku had been lounging against the plush red curve of his seat, but at the name, he straightens, eyes glittering. "The Togruta boy," he offers. "From the academy on Ventrux."

"Yes," Mace says. "He contacted me approximately four hours previous, by comm-text. I was in conference with the Chancellor, and as such I did not take notice of the message until two hours after it was sent." He pauses. "That was my mistake. When I arrived at the specified location, he was gone. Most likely not of his own volition."

"Vaht has the boy gotten himself into?" Even Piell grumbles, though his single eye watches Mace, sharply.

"It seems that he inadvertently came into contact with the organization known as The Cruorven," Mace continues. "A trusted contact of ours saw him with the Howling Sarlacc freshly tattooed on his person."

A murmur rises among the assembled masters.

"Sure we are that the Cruorven, it was?" Yaddle interjects, heavy-lidded eyes sorrowful.

"Yes."

Dooku taps one long finger against his lips. "Can you be sure he did not join them willingly?"

Mace gives the newest member of the Council a cool stare. "I know Ezhno well. He was clear enough in his message that he had found something of importance, such that he needed to inform me immediately. He also seemed sufficiently frightened. If anything, I would have commended his astuteness in contacting me."

"We must search for him," Ki-Adi-Mundi says, gravely. The only father among the assembled Council, he treasures children nearly as much as Yoda does.

Adi Gallia spares the rest of the Council a quick glance before speaking. "Perhaps we will glean insight from those Cruorven we have already apprehended. What has been done to those responsible for the Senate incursion?"

"Those below the age of sixteen – a significant number – have been moved to the appropriate correctional facilities," Mace reports. "I have advised the Chancellor against it, but it seems that much of the Senate wishes to try those aged between sixteen and adulthood as full-fledged adults."

"I doubt the Chancellor will be able to do much to counter that motion," Plo Koon rumbles. "A pity."

"Indeed," Yoda mutters, ears drooping slightly. "Saddening, it is."

"Preliminary investigations suggest that most of them do not know much beyond the codename of a single contact," Mace continues. "We will be hard-pressed to learn much from them."

"And the leader?" Dooku inquires.

"He might know more, but he is still in questioning."

"I see."

"And vaht of young Ezhno?" Even Piell suggests. "His friends?"

"I doubt Padawans Kenobi and Tori will know anything," Mace says, even as Dooku's fingers twitch against a metal armrest at the name. "However…"

"Ah," Even Piell grins, fearsomely. "Padawan Vos."

"Yes. He might divulge useful information. For the moment…" Mace pauses. "Plo. I hand the search for our young ward over to you."

Plo Koon inclines his head.

"Then dismissed, this Council is," Yoda harrumphs. "Meditate, we all must. News we might have, in the morning."

There is an assembled "Yes, Master," and then softly-spoken conversations start up as the Council members rise.

Dooku remains seated for a long moment, dark eyes glimmering at the stylised lotus that blooms at the centre of the chamber floor.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan grits his teeth as his lightsaber is nearly wrenched out of his hand.

There is a terrific clashing of blades as he wrenches his azure blade out of its lock with his opponent's silver shoto; but the shoto slips around the longer 'saber as though it runs on a rail around the plasma bar, trapping it, and Obi-Wan hurriedly ducks under the sapphire blade that scythes towards his head.

Huei's face sports a fierce grin as he withdraws his primary 'saber from its missed strike and uses his left hand to curve his secondary blade still further around Obi-Wan's single lightsaber; there is a spitting howl as silver and blue skid against one another, hissing ozone.

Obi-Wan calms the thudding of his pulse in his ears, and listens for the Force. Like the tumbling notes that fall into the Force when he plays his stone flute, there is a melody here, hidden, in the pace of Huei's footwork and the hum of their lightsabers. Obi-Wan simply needs to…anticipate it.

He alters the angle of his 'saber – straining against the opposing magnetic field of Huei's blade – and hurls his weight behind the elbow of his sword-arm, blade screeching as it slides across Huei's shoto, almost to the hilt.

The Nautolan padawan grunts as Obi-Wan's elbow sinks into his stomach, but the next moment he has shifted minutely, twisting to the side, and his shoto halts a finger-breadth from the side of Obi-Wan's neck.

"I win," Huei pants, white teeth glinting as he smiles widely.

A pause, where the Force seems to chuckle.

There is a tapping of something solid against the soft underside of Huei's chin.

Obi-Wan's Force-signature is a suppressed swirl of delight.

Huei frowns as he focuses his hearing. Belatedly, he realises he can only hear the steady, at-rest hum of two 'sabers.

Both his own.

Huei barks a laugh as he pieces it together.

Obi-Wan has his lightsaber pressed to the underside of Huei's chin. The smallest movement of Obi-Wan's thumb, and Huei would be short a brainstem.

"You would still lose your head," Huei protests as he deactivates his 'sabers, taking a step back.

There is a clink as Obi-Wan snaps his lightsaber back onto his belt. His Force-signature is all easy amusement.

"As if," Huei mutters good-naturedly as he follows Obi-Wan's Force-signature back to the bench at the wall. "I wager I'd move faster."

As always, there is no answer, though Obi-Wan radiates polite incredulity. Huei is sure that if he could see his friend, there would be a snark-filled grin on that otherwise collected face.

But conversation is difficult – it always is – so they lapse into their usual comfortable silence.

Huei accepts the canteen Obi-Wan taps against his fingers, and wonders if there is any way the two of them could ever hold a conversation without the presence of a console that could display typed words in raised Aurebesh. Obi-Wan's usual method of writing on flimsy is inapplicable in the case of Huei, and as skilled as Huei is in reading others' Force-signatures, there is something wanting in their daily interactions.

They cannot go to the archives every time there is an important conversation to be had. It is simply not practical.

For example, Obi-Wan's Force-signature has been a trifle…dim, since yesterday. But without a console at his fingertips, Huei cannot enter into a long conversation with Obi-Wan about it – the most Huei knows is that there had been a master-padawan quarrel of some sort, the day before. Obi-Wan had brushed it off, and Huei could not press for an answer.

But there must be something very wrong for Obi-Wan to turn up at Huei's door early in the morning, itching for a sparring session.

His musings are interrupted when a towel collides softly with his face.

Huei uses his free hand to grab the offending towel and whip it in the general direction it came from. The smack of towel against cloth and the screech of the bench as Obi-Wan jerks back, though, is worth it.

The best of friends, of course, do not necessarily need to speak to understand each other.

He chuckles. There is a soft wheezing sound from his right, which means Obi-Wan is laughing, too.

A cold star climbs up over the horizon of Huei's awareness.

His laugh catches in his throat.

The Force tilts towards this new point like gravity bending towards the impossibly heavy depths of a neutron star, skewing the world towards it, tumbling down a well with sides too slippery to grasp.

Huei slams down shutters over his mind like secondary blast-shields over a hangar floor, shutting out gravity, light, darkness, everything except his own thoughts.

Not as attuned to this particular star as his friend is, Obi-Wan's Force signature only stutters as he senses Huei's change. And then he too seems to realise what is coming, and flings up shields like a battle station taken by surprise.

But then the neutron star is upon them, and both padawans slip into its circle of influence, asteroids pulled from their assigned paths. The air grows heavy with its weight, pressing down on their heads.

They rise from the bench together, sweaty hands folded in opposite sleeves, and bow as one.

Obi-Wan's muted presence turns to Huei for a moment in the Force, as if in question.

Huei shakes his head, and jerks his chin in the general direction of the door.

There is a rustle as cloak and canteen are lifted off the bench, and then Obi-Wan's quiet footsteps fade down the corridor.

In the strained heaviness that remains, Huei does a quick sweep of his shields to confirm they are secure, and then inclines his head once more.

"Master Dooku," he intones. Perfect. Emotionless.

"Padawan Tori," the silk-smooth voice replies. Somewhat less silken than Huei remembers, but perhaps that is only a fault of memory, and not anything…particular.

Huei waits, fingers clasped in his sleeves to hide their shaking. Outwardly, he knows he shows nothing but calm patience. Or so he hopes.

There is a long silence. Such a complete and utter lack of sound that Huei wonders for a moment if the thudding of the air 'cyclers in the ceiling are in his head, or if that is his pulse, tumbling and ragged in his throat.

"I am pleased to hear you have recovered as much as you have," Dooku begins. It is not a question. Not even really a statement. It simply…is.

"Thank you, Master Dooku." Huei is glad for the emotional buffer of the extra word; likewise, he would never have thought he would have been so relieved to hear his own surname.

When his former master speaks again, his voice is nowhere near as smooth or restrained as it once was. "Are you…" The sentence hangs there. Unfinished.

Huei holds his tongue, face wiped carefully blank, and continues to wait.

He will not speak unless spoken to. But not for the reason he used to do so.

Dooku clears his throat. It is cultured. Exact. "Are you well?" he says.

Huei cannot quite mask his little jerk of surprise at that. "You have heard from the healers, Master Dooku," he replies. "I am as well as I can ever hope to be. I am fortunate in that regard."

"No," Dooku murmurs. "Are you…have you kept up with your forms? Your studies?"

Oh.

"Master Ner'iah has been a very good teacher," Huei answers. "I have been able to continue with my lightsaberwork, with some adaptations."

The Force hovers oddly, as though Huei's answer is insufficient. Or perhaps it was Dooku's question, and not the answer at all.

"I see," Dooku says, quietly. And then suddenly: "You've grown."

Huei cannot think of a reply to that, so he remains silent. He has a sudden, inexplicable longing to have sight returned to him for a few moments, just to see his former master's face again. If he himself had indeed grown, then does his former master have more silver hairs than he did before? Are there more lines on his face now, or are his eyes still as steely as Huei remembers them?

A tugging on the master-padawan bond at the back of his mind.

Huei swivels towards the new Force-presence that coalesces on the fringe of his awareness.

Dooku seems startled at Huei's movement for a moment, before his Force-signature flares as he sends out questing tendrils.

Feemor Ner'iah's familiar steps echo as he enters the training room, and the bond thickens into a torrent. Huei answers the unspoken question presented to him with a flicker of assurance.

"Master Dooku," Feemor says, and Huei has to physically block off his shock. Feemor's voice is pleasant, yes, but it holds a tinge of steel that Huei has not heard in it before.

"Master Ner'iah," Dooku replies.

A tense rustle as both masters bow to each other.

"Huei," Feemor says, after a moment, "If you could wait in the corridor, I would like a moment alone to speak with Master Dooku."

Huei pauses for an instant, but then he bows to Dooku again, collects his equipment, and moves carefully out into the corridor.

Alone in the cool, 'cycled air of the training room with Dooku opposite, Feemor waves the door shut.

"Master Dooku," Feemor says as he turns back towards his grandmaster. "I had heard you returned."

"It has been a long year in the field," Dooku replies, sharp eyes watching Feemor's every move.

A pause. Neither of them seems to want to continue with the pleasantries.

"Have you encountered any difficulties?" Dooku inquires. His tone is light, unaffected. He could be asking what selection of teas there might be at an upscale restaurant.

Feemor replies with nothing but the truth. "Huei is severe on those he deems to be corrupt, at times. But those sentients are usually not wholly undeserving. He is far more kind. And I would never call him cruel."

"I see."

Another pause. Longer.

"There are times I forget you trained Qui-Gon," Feemor says, distantly.

"Surprising, though not unexpected. It has been decades, and we all of us are no longer young, grandpadawan," Dooku replies, evenly.

Feemor looks him dead in the eye. "In this past year I have discovered many things, grandmaster," he says, calmly. "I have discovered the wealth of talent, joy, and fortitude that is my new padawan. And in teaching Huei, I have come to respect Qui-Gon more with each day that passes."

Dooku's dark-eyed gaze rests on him for a long moment.

Then: "I am glad," Dooku says. "I wish you continued success."

Feemor does not thank him.

Dooku strides towards the door, but before it opens, he turns, minutely.

"I thank you for caring for him," he says, without any inflection whatsoever. "You have…a remarkable bond." His shields are drawn so tight he is almost a shadow in the Force.

And then he is gone, and Huei's Force-presence flares a little in the hallway before settling again.

Feemor pauses for a moment, to centre himself.

Huei might find it a little difficult to make friends – Obi-Wan is certainly his closest – and there might be…points of argument…regarding his preferred methods, at times, but he is Feemor's apprentice. And Feemor will teach him gladly.

Feemor takes a long, measured breath, and goes to join his padawan.

(:~:)

The sheet of flimsy rustles as it is adjusted for the third time in as many minutes.

Ben-Avi scowls down at his desk and reads the sentence again. It is useless; words stubbornly refuse to be translated into meaning. A whole morning's work, crawling past at the pace of a juvenile duracrete slug.

He pushes back from the table with a muttered imprecation and scrubs at his face with ink-stained hands.

The creak of the opening door startles him out of his headache, almost. Ben-Avi is still not used to the old-style wooden door, with real hinges – though that is not something to be thought about at the moment, not with nearly two metres of very tall Queen, warrior, and wife towering over you.

"Aleph, dear," Ben-Avi acknowledges. And then: "Where's Kifi?"

Alephi watches him. Her arms are loose at her sides, but he knows that they barely need to twitch before they can have knives for fingers and swords for nails.

But her short swords are securely sheathed at her back – for the moment, at least.

"The Chancellor indicated he would like to show her the Senate gardens on his daily mid-morning walk," she says, impassively. "I know Finis well enough that I deemed it acceptable. We should have twenty minutes before Kifi returns. I thought that sufficient time for us to hold a logical conversation. We are both adults, are we not?" That last part is accompanied with a sharp narrowing of her dark-edged eyes.

"I see," Ben-Avi says. Rising, he crosses over to the next room, and takes a seat on one of the formal sofas there. Alephi lowers herself onto the seat opposite.

The low caf-table between them could be a gulf light-years wide.

"I think," Alephi says, after a moment, "I shall let you attempt to explain yourself first. There is always a twisted logic to every action taken, no matter how illogical it might seem from a third-party perspective. I did not ask you to explain yourself yesterday precisely because I thought you could do with the half-day to stew yourself into quietude again."

Ben-Avi meets his wife's gaze steadily, though with no little shame. "I shall begin with an apology," he says, calmly. "I hope my actions will be a little more understandable after I explain the events that occurred beforehand, but this does not excuse them completely. I am sorry."

Alephi nods slowly, lips softening a little out of their hard line, and gestures at him to continue.

"While you were meeting the Chancellor yesterday, I asked Obi-Wan a question." Here Ben-Avi pauses. "I asked him what level he has reached in sign-language."

"I see," Alephi murmurs. "I take it that he then expressed that he had no training in it whatsoever."

"He didn't know what it was, Aleph."

"I had wondered," Alephi whispers. "I had assumed the flimsy in his belt was for people he was unfamiliar with. But when he met Master Jinn in the hangar, I…speculated that my previous assumption was incorrect."

"We knew that the Core worlds have their prejudices." Ben-Avi glances about the plush chamber, with its decadent décor and its soft fabrics. "In a world of wealth, there tend to be more and more methods to aid those with disabilities. Not a bad thing by itself, unless the simpler means of aid are then phased out completely by a tendency to forcibly change what people don't necessarily want to." He sighs, allowing his head to rest on the back of the couch for a moment.

"We knew Coruscant would be the worst of all," Alephi says, quietly.

"We didn't think it would extend to the Jedi Order." The words catch in Ben-Avi's throat. "I didn't think it would. And so when I heard, I simply couldn't…" He halts, mid-sentence, and puffs out a short breath.

"Did Master Jinn express regret when you brought up the matter with him?"

"No, he…" Ben-Avi's stops, and a contemplative look passes over his features. "I think he did," he says, slowly. "I asked how often Obi-Wan initiated conversations instead of responding when spoken to. That seemed to give him pause."

"Then you have already done what you could, at that time," Alephi muses. "Though I cannot say how much of that was undone when you two then decided to have the equivalent of an alpha-rancor duel."

A passing aircar reflects the mid-morning sun across her face in a bright flash of light, glimmering through her brown irises like gold shot through warm earth. Ben-Avi tilts his head and wonders, in this short moment, if there was ever a more fitting metaphor for her: humble queen, strong nobility.

"What?" she says. "You're staring."

"You're beautiful." Ben-Avi supposes he could have phrased it better, but after seventeen years of marriage, he knows the value of candor and simplicity.

She narrows those humbly noble eyes at him. "Ahem," she coughs, pointedly, even as the corners of her lips twitch, minutely.

"Oh. Yes," Ben-Avi continues. "I believe it was partly guilt that caused me to lose control as I did. I was adamant that giving up Obi-Wan to the Jedi was the best thing to do for him."

"At the time, I too thought it was the best decision," Alephi sighs. "And I stand by it, even now. I knew he would never understand that part of himself if he stayed with us. The Jedi that came to speak with us explained it well – those who remain untrained are easily preyed upon by less-honourable Force-users."

"But you at least considered other alternatives," Ben-Avi counters. "We could have taken him to Jedha every half-year, as you said."

"We concluded that wasn't feasible, and you know it," Alephi growls, an edge rising in her voice. "He was strong enough as a toddler. Six-month gaps could not possibly help his tutelage."

"I think we might have managed," Ben-Avi mutters. "If we only–"

"Enough," Alephi says, sharply. She closes her eyes, for a moment. "We are not doing this again," she murmurs, softly, pressing fingers to temples "I have experienced over a decade of it. Let us not reverse roles on whether we should have given him up, and quarrel again. I am exhausted enough as is; two years is not enough of a reprieve."

There is hardly a sound here, in this receiving-room. The transparisteel is too thick for the roar of repulsors in the skylanes outside to filter in. There is only the soft tick-tick of the antique chrono in the next room, ever-steady, never-ceasing.

Ben-Avi stands, slowly, and crosses over to his wife. She does not protest when he sits next to her, or when he wraps an arm around her shoulders and presses a kiss to her forehead.

"We have Kifi," he murmurs into her hair.

"We have Kifi," she agrees, softly, leaning into his shoulder. "I had thought it impossible, after so many years."

The sunlight is warm, and the room quiet.

"Obi-Wan is a better man than I am," Ben-Avi declares, quietly.

"Then Master Jinn has taught him well." Alephi breathes a sigh. "For all his faults."

"I may have an idea," Ben-Avi says. "One that doesn't involve punching the starlights out of Master Jinn's head, though I can't deny that a part of me still wishes to do so."

"Ah, and here we have my logical, capable husband," Alephi says, dryly, taking his hand.

"And my noble, admirable Queen," Ben-Avi returns.

"Pish-posh. Tell me, my loyal subject, what is your idea?"

"I'm going to offer to teach Obi-Wan and his friends sign-language," Ben-Avi says. A wry grin crosses his face. "I'll teach Master Jinn, too, if he's amenable to it. We didn't keep up with our practice of sign-language for years to be unable to communicate with our son when we finally meet him."

In response, Alephi simply kisses his cheek.

(:~:)

Coruscant Prime's fading light turns the towers of Coruscant into a many-pillared sundial when Tahl Uvain ascends the last flight of stairs to the Temple roof.

She cannot quite suppress a sigh as she flashes her ID chip to a Temple guard, and is waved towards a guard-box overhanging the Temple's western wall. Sniper duty is the bane of every ranking Jedi Master's active duty – a night of inevitably dull, mind-numbing crowd-watching, only alleviated by company if the Jedi assigned to the same guard-box is a friendly acquaintance. The necessity to stay vigilant, Force-senses attuned for the slightest disturbance, only adds the surety of a headache come morning.

With the number of masters present in the Temple in recent centuries, the once-weekly duty after the last Sith war has since been reduced to once every six months; still, even the most patient of masters can be heard grumbling about it on duty night.

It does not help that Tahl goes to sniper duty on this night with a troubled mind – she has not been able to locate Qui-Gon for a full evening and a day. It is unlike him to ignore her comm-calls so.

She had sought out Obi-Wan, but had been waylaid by her own apprentice; even Bant had only vague impressions of a quarrel, an incident in the Temple receiving-rooms late in the previous afternoon.

The guard-box opens to the swipe of her ID chip.

And there, facing the Temple Plaza, framed in the fiery, daily death of Coruscant's sun, is her friend Qui-Gon Jinn.

Tahl halts on the threshold of the box itself. "And where in Sith-spawned stars have you been all day?" she says, lightly. "I've been running myself ragged looking for you, Qui."

Qui-Gon does not turn around, or make a sound.

She steps up next to him, and leans her elbows on the balustrade. "Qui," she says, narrowing her eyes at him.

He does not respond. His eyes, fixed on Coruscant Prime's tumbling flames, seem moist.

"Qui?"

He takes a breath, and turns to her. "You've always been here to listen to me when I make a fool of myself," he says, bluntly.

She notes that those are tears in his eyes.

"Did someone die?" she asks, as blunt as he was. If that is what has happened, it is better to get the harsh news over with and move on to comfort.

"No," Qui-Gon almost laughs at her question – more of a bark than anything. "In the past day, though – almost a full twenty-four hours, now – I've come to realise I have made far more mistakes than my pride would admit."

Tahl searches his face. "I am listening," she says.

"Are you aware of something called sign-language?"

Tahl tilts her head. "I recall the phrase from a communications textbook, I think. I don't remember what exactly it is; I don't think it was mentioned in detail. But then again, you took very different courses than I did in our senior apprenticeship days."

"I have spent most of today in the Archives," Qui-Gon says, staring down at his hands, which clench and unclench on the railing before him. "I have searched for this sign-language in the history of our Republic. And I have discovered a horror too unspeakable for words."

Tahl places slim fingers over Qui-Gon's white-knuckled hand. It takes a minute or two, but eventaully Qui-Gon's fingers relaxes out of the tight fist. His hand rotates, and clasps hers.

"Galactic sign language used to be exactly that: a language," Qui-Gon murmurs. "It was not as widely known as other languages, or even Ryl – though Ryl was the most similar. But it was required learning for every healer. It was a language that allowed communication fully by hand-motions, with facilitated by facial expressions and body language at times."

"Oh," Tahl says. Then: "Oh."

"Since the advent of the neural-implantated vocabulator nearly a full millennia ago, Galactic sign language has been largely eliminated," Qui-Gon says, voice tight. "Until–"

"Until its existence is barely taught at all," Tahl murmurs, shock flickering in her green-gold eyes.

"There are other variations," Qui-Gon amends. "Non-Basic sign-languages, originated from worlds beyond the Core, where technology is more expensive, and the populations less wealthy. But Galactic Sign language is now nearly only preserved in holovolumes. I doubt even the Temple healers are able to sign."

"How did you come to know this?" Tahl whispers.

As this, he turns away. "I met Obi-Wan's parents yesterday."

Tahl waits for him to elaborate. When he does not, she closes her eyes, briefly. "I take it the meeting went poorly."

Qui-Gon swallows audibly – his throat must be extremely dry. "Very."

Tahl hands him a ration of water, wordlessly.

"I lost my temper."

"Hm," Tahl murmurs, smiling. "You're going to have to specify how badly."

Qui-Gon gazes at his right boot. "I may have nearly punched Obi-Wan's father in the face."

"You what?" Tahl gasps, aghast.

He glances at her quickly, and averts his eyes again. "To be fair, he was going to punch me first."

"Qui. We are no longer younglings. You no longer punch Mace when he says something unsavoury about your character. He no longer punches you back, either. So this is not a simple loss of temper." She leans towards him, growling. "What did you say to him, Qui?"

"I insinuated Obi-Wan was not his son."

Tahl does not have a reply to that; she stares at him. Her hand tightens around his. He winces.

"Then he – quite rightly – said that Obi-Wan was not my son, either." A shadow of pain crosses Qui-Gon's face.

"And then you two decided to deck it out."

"I wasn't a decision–" Qui-Gon's face freezes, and then collapses. "No. It was," he murmurs. "I decided, in that moment, that I would rather indulge my anger than master myself."

"I notice a distinct lack of bruising on your stupidly straight nose," Tahl says. "I gather you did not truly come to blows."

"Obi-Wan must have sensed my disquiet. He jumped between us."

"Stars."

"My sentiment exactly," Qui-Gon says, a trifle miserably.

"Did you speak with Obi-Wan afterwards?"

"No. He left me kneeling in the garden. I have not sought him out since."

"Astonishing," Tahl murmurs, releasing Qui-Gon's hand. "It was only two days ago that I had to traipse through what seemed like the entirety of the Temple to get you two to shake hands like younglings and be friends again, but you seem to have regressed to a worse place than even that, now."

Qui-Gon opens and shuts his hand a few times, surreptitiously, to get the blood flowing again.

A short chime rings somewhere above their heads, signaling the start of their sniper shift.

Both masters activate their lightsabers in opposite hands – Qui-Gon's in his right, and Tahl's in her left – and lean obediently over the railing, sweeping their gazes over the Processional Way and the Temple Plaza beyond.

The last sliver of Coruscant Prime glides below the horizon, and Coruscant's forest of artificial lights are thrown into sharp relief.

"Tomorrow I will accompany Obi-Wan when he goes for his Senate attachment, myself," Qui-Gon says, slowly. "I will apologise. And express my earnest intention to learn."

A pause, as the nighttime revelry of the Temple Plaza filters up towards them.

"And I will also apologise to Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon adds, hoarsely, "for failing him."

"We shall apologise together," Tahl says, sliding her free hand over Qui-Gon's again. "I have perhaps more excuse, but it is not enough."

A moment of quiet. The Force hums gently, steadily, like the lightsabers at their side.

"We may have to take this issue before the Council," Qui-Gon warns, leaning forward to squint at a kerfuffle at the edge of the plaza.

A wicked smile spreads on Tahl's face, curved in the bright viridian of their lightsabers, emerald and sea-blue. "I will go with you," she says.

"Mace won't know what hit him," Qui-Gon comments.

"Speaking of which, do you think he's behind this?"

"Behind what?" Qui-Gon says as his thumb brushes over her knuckles. He is still staring intently at the scuffle in the distance; it is doubtful if he even noticed the motion of his own fingers.

"Putting us on sniper duty together," Tahl says softly, watching not the wide boulevard below, or the plaza in the distance, but the wider thumb that moves over the back of her hand.

Qui-Gon's hand stills.

"Mace is not cruel," he says, quite calmly. "He pairs up friends as much as possible, I would think."

A pause. "Indeed." And then, suddenly: "What did you think of Obi-Wan's parents?"

"I did not see them in the best of situations," Qui-Gon responds. Perhaps he is relieved at the change of subject; his hand twitches once under Tahl's, and then relaxes. "They seemed to care very much for each other; his father certainly revered his wife not only as a life-partner but as queen of his star-system. Obi-Wan's mother could command legions with a baby in her arms, and not look any stranger for it."

"She must have been a sight to behold, then, when she saw what had happened," Tahl says.

"Indeed she was," Qui-Gon murmurs. "She reminded me of you, somewhat."

"How so?"

"Regal," Qui-Gon says, eyes fixed on the distant plaza lights. "Terrifying."

Tahl snorts.

"…and beautiful," Qui-Gon says, so softly it is barely audible. "You, more so."

Tahl stiffens.

The Force glimmers and crescendos, before dipping into a soft trough, as though the stars breathe a slow sigh.

"I am sorry," Qui-Gon says, nothing more than a quiet susurration of air. He lets his hand fall back to his side.

Tahl slips her hand off the railing, and finds Qui-Gon's fingers again, in the windswept folds of his cloak. "No, don't be," she whispers.

Qui-Gon's fingers tremble like hers, in shared grief, as he returns her grasp.

She edges a half-step closer, and tilts her head so it leans on his shoulder. After a moment, his head tilts too, to rest upon hers. Her ochre-brown curls brush against Qui-Gon's long, chestnut mane.

The glow of their lightsabers wreathe their feet as a forest meets the sea, and meld into viridian below their clasped hands.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon returns to his and Obi-Wan's quarters when the morning bell rings, slightly bleary-eyed from lack of sleep but with a determined stride. He will set things right with his padawan, and then have a well-deserved nap. He notes with some amusement that it has now been two full days since he slept at all.

But when the door slides open, he finds the apartment empty– but there is a cup of Sapir kept hot on a warm-plate on the table, with a scrap of flimsy beside it reading Master Qui-Gon.

Something as warm and smooth as the tea on the table rises up inside his chest, at the sight.

Qui-Gon has just taken his first sip when his comlink chimes.

"Jinn," he says, keying open the channel.

"Qui-Gon." Mace's voice is tight. "Get on the holonet. Now."

Tea forgotten, Qui-Gon moves quickly to a corner of the living area. "What am I looking for?" he says as he flicks open the holoscreen.

"Any news channel."

Galactic Holovision is the first Qui-Gon selects; a smartly-dressed Twi'Lek news anchor materialises in green. At the lower edge of the screen, a wide row of scrolling text reads:

BREAKING: JEDI HEROES OF THE SENATE INCURSION NAMED.

Qui-Gon tears his eyes away from this revelation just as the anchor's words register to his ears.

"An source from the Senate, who does not wish to be named, has confirmed that one of the Jedi apprentices involved – fourteen-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi – is in fact Crown Prince to the system of Stewjon. His highness Jedi Kenobi is currently serving a joint Jedi-Senate internship under his father Ben-Avi Kenobi, First Duke of Stewjon and the newly-elected Republic Cultural Minister."

"Oh, stars," Qui-Gon mutters.

His comm squawks.

"Find Obi-Wan and get him to the Council chamber now," Mace is saying. He sounds, for the moment, very weary. "There's something else I need to tell you both."

"What?"

"Ezhno. I would prefer to wait until Obi-Wan is here to say the rest."

"Noted," Qui-Gon growls.

As he empties the cup of tea into the sink and flings his cloak around his shoulders again on his way out, he wonders absently when his head will be able to hit his pillow again.

In all likelihood, not for another two days at least.

He pushes this from his mind, and keys his padawan's comm frequency.

Chapter Text

When the entrance Obi-Wan's favourite garden hisses open, Obi-Wan rises from where he is knelt before a Muja sapling – has been kneeling there, now, for most of the night– and turns to face his master with relief. He is expecting an apology, and an explanation.

He does not get one.

A single, burning glance. "Come, Padawan."

And then Qui-Gon has spun on a heel, and is gone.

Obi-Wan stands there for a long moment, dumbfounded, staring after the edge of his master's cloak like an abandoned akk pup. His legs ache from their prolonged kneeling.

Then he does what has always done, ever since he became Qui-Gon's apprentice – he sets his jaw, and follows.

It occurs to him that he is growing quite tired of following. Silently.

Always so blasted silently.

And then he catches up with his master's longer pace and gets a good look at Qui-Gon's face, or at least what he can see of it with the way Qui-Gon plows doggedly forward, leonine features set hard and unyielding. There is a sense of urgency in the manner of Qui-Gon's step, without his usual accompaniment of determination.

Obi-Wan does not like it in the least.

It means Qui-Gon is unsure, worried, and possibly even afraid.

But is he angry?

None of these things do any good for Obi-Wan's state of mind as they half-sprint towards the centre spire, dodging masters and knights alike, some of which give the passing pair looks of mild disapproval at their speed. When they reach the base of the spire, Qui-Gon shoulders his way into the turbolift before the doors are fully open; Obi-Wan has barely slipped in after his master before the hiss of hydraulics sends them shooting up the side of the tower.

Obi-Wan waits, but his master does not spare him even a glance; there is a troubled set to Qui-Gon's jaw that Obi-Wan has rarely seen. It is almost…frightening.

By the time Obi-Wan thinks to put stylus to flimsy and ask, the turbolift has very nearly reached the pinnacle of the tower.

His fist clenches white around his stylus as he places it back into his belt. Another moment gone, simply for his lack of speech. Or a language. Sign language, as Ben-Avi had said.

Obi-Wan had heard enough to understand why there had nearly been blows, but not nearly enough to understand his master.

Surely there must be a logical reason Qui-Gon had never spoken of this sign language.

Surely.

"Come." Qui-Gon's clipped word has Obi-Wan breaking into a half-run to join his master before the double doors to the Council chamber, which swing open without even a moment's solemn pause – another indication that something is very wrong indeed.

Morning sunlight lances through the transparisteel windows, throwing shadows behind the two masters and three padawans standing before the assembled Council. Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow at Garen, Siri, and Huei – the latter of which tilts his head towards Obi-Wan's Force-presence – but all he receives is an equally mystified half-shrug from Garen in return.

From the look on Feemor and Clee Rhara's faces, though, this is unlikely to be pleasant. Adi Gallia has an uncharacteristically fierce expression on her face, and her gaze does not waver from her apprentice, standing alone some distance from her chair.

At least Master Dooku's seat is empty. There is that, at least.

The doors close behind Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan with a sonorous boom.

Qui-Gon has barely straightened from the most perfunctory of bows before he stares Mace Windu in the eye, expectantly.

Though his lips thin, Mace does not mince words. "Masters, I'm sure you are aware of the present situation regarding the holonet news."

Obi-Wan glances questioningly at Qui-Gon, but receives no acknowledgement except a single look that says listen further. Garen and Siri seem equally surprised by this topic, and Huei's head tilts minutely to the side, towards Feemor beside him.

Clee Rhara shares a glance with Qui-Gon and Feemor before turning towards Adi Gallia, who nods back at her from her Council seat. "I am aware of the general situation, yes," Clee says. "But not the extent."

"It would seem an anonymous Senate source has revealed the names of the padawans assembled here to the holonet press," Adi replies, golden eyes flickering with fire. "The press was quick to label them heroes. Though not an undeserving title, perhaps." This last part is said with a small smile to her apprentice.

Siri inclines her head in acknowledgement, but her spine is proud and her grin fierce.

Obi-Wan digests this information with some surprise, but without much initial concern. Masters, let alone padawans, are not often directly named in publicised reports regarding matters of the Order; there is little use in claiming glory when a mission is a mission, and the acts of the Order unified. And if a name is revealed, what is one name among trillions in a galaxy? It is not as if many Jedi have influential names. Even Obi-Wan himself–

Oh.

Mace's voice echoes Obi-Wan's train of thought. "This revelation would have been less of a problem if it were not for the reports that came very quickly afterward. One from a holonet reporter specialising in Galactic monarchy, and another from a Senate clerk at the Galactic Courts of Justice who obviously found his salary…lacking." The Korun Jedi settles a considering gaze upon Obi-Wan. "Needless to say, Padawan Kenobi's heritage and his and Padawan Tori's unfortunate encounters on Ventrux are far more interesting to the masses than the names of four young Jedi."

"I see," Qui-Gon says, tonelessly. "And Zan Arbor?"

Huei sucks in a breath; Feemor places a hand on his shoulder.

Obi-Wan suppresses the shudder that runs up his spine at the name. Just barely.

He senses gimlet eyes fall piercingly on him, but he looks forward, resolutely, as though Master Yoda does not exist.

Not that he succeeds, but, well.

A sharp clack of gnarled wood meeting larmalstone. Yoda harrumphs as he slides off his chair. "Irrelevant, she is," he says, using his stick to nudge Qui-Gon out of his path as though the towering Jedi is no more than a troublesome weed between him and his goal.

A tic appears at Qui-Gon's jaw, but he acquiesces and steps to the side.

"Irrelevant, she is," Yoda repeats. He raises his stick and jabs Obi-Wan in the chest. "Important, you are." His eyes glint at the other padawans, green and sharp, as his stick meets the floor with the finality of a judge's hammer. "Important, you all are."

Obi-Wan rotates his wrist under the stylus and flimsy always in his sleeve, and lets the words sink into him as Yoda returns to his seat.

Qui-Gon is looking at him now. Obi-Wan can sense it, over his shoulder and above him.

Something bitter and viscous twists inside him; something he did not know existed. It whispers, Let Qui-Gon take his turn.

So Obi-Wan raises his chin, and deliberately turns it to face the Council instead. His end of the bond is all mirrored cold and frosty calm.

Qui-Gon's Force-presence contracts in shock.

Mace looks very much like a headache is beginning to get to him, but he glances at Yoda before speaking again. "The courts have decided to go forward with Zan Arbor's trial as planned. The involvement of two minors in the matter seem to have swung the public in favour of her conviction, and the prosecution will take advantage of that. The greater problem lies in the fact that a statement confirming the padawans' names are not enough; the public needs more than one blurry holonet photo and four names to sate their appetite. Senator Palpatine has suggested a holonet press conference as soon as logistically possible."

"With all four padawans?" Feemor says, fingers tightening on Huei's shoulder.

"That was the initial proposition, yes," Mace replies, amber eyes flickering with distaste. "I was able to talk him down, so to speak. He insists, however, on Padawans Kenobi and Tori being there, as well as the Kenobi family, as they are the ones that present most intrigue. As…unpleasant as it is, I am inclined to agree with him." His gaze rests gravely on Huei and Obi-Wan. "But the final say falls on the padawans. Padawans Kenobi, Tori, if you agree, then Padawans Muln and Tachi will be spared a session with the press."

Obi-Wan glances at Garen and Siri. Siri expression is closed, but her feet are edging minutely towards her master's seat, and Garen, for all his usual cocksure confidence, is looking a bit pasty around the lips.

Huei confers quietly with Feemor for a moment, and then sets his jaw and straightens his shoulders.

Alone, Obi-Wan turns back towards the Council. And nods, once.

There is a hint of approval Mace's eyes. "Then it is done. The press conference will be held at six hours postmeridian this evening. Padawans, dismissed. There is a shuttle waiting at the Western hangar to take you to your Senate duties. Master Rhara, you may go. Masters Jinn and Ner'iah, if you will remain a moment."

Obi-Wan turns to go, and nearly runs into Qui-Gon's tunics. A wide, 'saber-calloused hand closes over his wrist.

"What about the other matter?" Qui-Gon says, tightly. "I think it rather relevant to my padawan. And Padawan Tori."

Obi-Wan looks up at him, and sees a sea of roiling worry beneath Qui-Gon's gaze.

Mace stares down Qui-Gon unaffectedly.

"I think it not," he says, baritone voice final. "Padawans, you may go."

Obi-Wan inclines his head, pulls his wrist out of Qui-Gon's grasp, and steps into the entryway without looking back. Almost triumphantly.

His heart feels like ash.

He does not see Qui-Gon reach out to him before the Council Room doors slam shut between them.

(:~:)

Qui-Gon's eyes, when the swivels to look at Mace, are ablaze.

Mace does not even blink.

"What was that," Qui-Gon begins, slowly.

Feemor reaches out for his shoulder. Qui-Gon side-steps the motion with predatory grace.

Mace breaks the silence. "Masters, a young Ward of the Order, Ezhno, disappeared the previous evening in CoCo Town, after contacting me on a matter of urgency."

Qui-Gon closes his eyes briefly. "I had assumed we were also here so Obi-Wancould be told about Ezhno," he eventually says, forcing words past gritted teeth.

"I am to blame," Plo Koon says, leaning forward in his chair. "I had not finished my report when we contacted you over the Senate information leak. There were salient points that upon reflection would cause more danger to Padawans Kenobi and Tori than good."

Qui-Gon focuses on this new target. "Explain," he hisses.

"Behave yourself you will, Qui-Gon," Yoda interjects, sharply. "Untrained you are not."

A pause.

Plo Koon waits a polite moment before continuing. "I sought out Padawan Vos, who explained that there was a certain holo-gaming establishment in the deep underlevels he frequented with young Ezhno. Obvious disciplinary issues aside, access to that establishment requires the use of a turbolift with a rather dubious mechanical history. Master Windu can attest to that."

"Yes," Mace says, eyes darkening.

Plo Koon nods once in acknowledgement. "Padawan Vos claimed that the last he saw of Ezhno, he was setting off to visit that gaming establishment. There is a Togruta girl named Fyrnock there, who I am told is a friend of young Ezhno. Padawan Vos suggested we start there."

"And?" Qui-Gon interjects. "Why is it better for Obi-Wan not to know this?"

Mace steps in. "We entered Fyrnock's name into the database of the Coruscant Security Force. It appears that she is the sister of one of the captured insurgents. A young Togruta male, Krayt. Who, incidentally, after further questioning, admitted he was also acquainted with Ezhno.

"But more importantly, both Krayt and this Fyrnock are both members of the same revolutionary organisation – the Cruorven, they call themselves. Blood family. Responsible for both the Senate incursion and smaller ambushes on government groups in several districts around Coruscant. And worse, Krayt admitted he knew their leader by only one name, as did many of the youths captured in the incursion incident. Sarlaac."

The Force shivers once. Mace is looking at Qui-Gon over steepled fingers now, intently.

"This Sarlaac," Mace says, carefully, "has been described as a human male. Late twenties. Dark hair. Deep blue eyes."

Perhaps it is the deep blue that makes Qui-Gon focus on Mace's words with new intensity. Deep blue, not azure, or cerulean, or any other countless variations.

To the galaxy at large, the most prominent figure with what can only be described as deep blue eyes is most likely the late Governor Crion of Telos IV.

But to Qui-Gon Jinn, it is not.

Feemor has fallen quite still beside him.

"And?" Qui-Gon manages. He feels as though eight years have tumbled away and he is once more in disgrace, standing before the Council with his head bowed in failure, grieving for an apprentice fallen from the Light.

Mace is regarding them with something close to sorrow, now – but he gives it to Qui-Gon, bluntly. Like ripping bandages off a wound Qui-Gon had thought long-healed.

"The Cruorven all know this Sarlaac by one defining characteristic – a scar, high on his right cheek. Shaped like a broken circle."

Xanatos, pressing his father's burning right hand to his cheek, flaring the salty reek of burning flesh anew as he sears his father's broken signet ring into the curve of his young, tear-stained cheekbone.

Qui-Gon reaches through the maelstrom of the Force, grounds himself on larmalstone throbbing with the agony of his pulse.

"I see," he says, through the ache in his chest. An old ache. It has never really gone away, though he might excuse and dismiss and lie to himself about it.

Feemor's hand is on his elbow.

Blast this.

No. Blast him. If there is anyone at fault, it is Qui-Gon, himself.

"And Ezhno did manage to get one message through to me, before he disappeared," Mace continues, softer. "He was terrified to say more unless it was face-to-face, but he gave me one word. Sarlaac. I'm sure you can see why it would very dangerous indeed to involve the padawans in this matter."

Clear. Logical.

Utterly, infuriatingly right.

Qui-Gon's heart might rebel against it, but he cannot argue with Mace on this matter. He finds himself attempting to burn a hole into the larmalstone by his boots instead. He wishes…

He wishes he had taken the time to apologise to Obi-Wan first, before all of this; taken that chance the turbolift on the way up the tower, instead of brooding over Ezhno. He wishes he had not assumed that he would leave this Council meeting with Obi-Wan, to be able to apologise and explain in private on the way to the Senate Building. He wishes he had been a better master. To Xanatos. To Obi-Wan.

"Very well," he says, finally. He raises his head. "In any case, I'm going after Ezhno."

And Xanatos.

He leaves that part unsaid, and staunchly ignores the gimlet green gaze that lances towards him from his right.

"So am I," Feemor says, stepping forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Qui-Gon. "Ezhno is Huei's friend, as well. But I will go with permission from you, of course, masters."

A pause. The morning sunlight flickers at their feet.

"Good," Mace says, surprising them both with a challenging flash of white teeth. "I'm going with you."

(:~:)

The first thing Obi-Wan is greeted with when he enters Ben-Avi Kenobi's study is an apology.

"I am so, so sorry, Obi-Wan," Ben-Avi had said, settling down, not across a wide desk laden with flimsy but next to Obi-Wan on one of the nerf-hide sofas in the sunlit room next to Ben-Avi's office. His ink-stained fingers press onto both of Obi-Wan's shoulders, urgently.

"I was a fool. I wanted only the best for you, from the moment you were born to the moment you were taken from us, and ever after. It pained me to realise that you were deprived of a means of communication that you should have been taught from young childhood, but I did not react as a decent father, good mentor, or even a concerned stranger, should. I am sorry. Will you forgive me, though I do not deserve it?"

Obi-Wan notes with some detached sense of wonder that those are tears in Ben-Avi's eyes.

The exact same shade of blue as his own.

One shade off from Qui-Gon's.

He also finds in that moment that forgiveness is as easy as taking a breath and releasing it. It is a wonderful relief to nod and smile with sincerity.

Ben-Avi smiles in return, asks, "May I?" and when Obi-Wan nods, folds him into an embrace.

It takes a moment for Obi-Wan to relax into it, but when he does, he smells ink, and old parchment, and warm bantha milk; scents of a nursery and a study, and a faraway garden scented of Stewjon honey–

And with that embrace comes a sudden grief, and hollow surprise.

Surprise, because Obi-Wan had not expected Ben-Avi to be the first to apologise. Just as he had not expected Qui-Gon to be so…flawed. To have kept something as life-changing as sign language from him, even though he is still yet unclear on the details of its learning.

And the only proper embrace he has ever known has always smelt of clean, quartermaster-issued linen and 'saber smoke.

He catches himself before the tears can leave his eyes.

There is a knock at the door, and Ben-Avi pulls away with a smile. "Ah, that should be Padawan Tori."

Obi-Wan takes the opportunity to dash away his tears. Huei?

Huei steps into the room with a perfectly polite expression on his face and zeroes in to Obi-Wan's Force-presence like a hunting thranctill. "Minister Kenobi," he intones, inclining his head in Ben-Avi's general direction as he approaches. "The Chancellor said you would have need of me today."

"Call me Ben-Avi." Ben-Avi stands, as does Obi-Wan. "You must be Padawan Tori. But may I call you Huei?"

Surprise flickers at the edge of Huei's expression. "Yes," he says, eventually.

"Good," Ben-Avi says, clapping his hands together. "Now, if you both take a seat, we could get started. Huei, there's a sofa a metre or so behind you, at knee-level."

"Get started on what?" Huei inquires, brow furrowing.

"On sign-language. Or, more specifically, one subtype I'd like to teach you both today."

Huei makes to speak, but Obi-Wan taps him on the elbow once, pens a line onto his flimsy, and hands it to Ben-Avi.

How will sign-language help me communicate with Huei?

Ben-Avi's grin is that of pure excitement. "Ah, that's the thing. I will be teaching you sighted sign-language, Obi-Wan, but I thought to start you both on the very basics of single-hand manual Aurebesh first. The advantage of the latter is that it was invented so that those who are both visually and auditory, or this case vocally impaired, can communicate." He turns to Huei. "With enough practice, Huei, you and Obi-Wan can speak almost as fast and as clearly to each other as I am to you now."

There is not a single movement in the room for the next half-minute.

Obi-Wan stares.

It is as though the universe has opened under him, and at his feet are the pathways to galaxies beyond his every imagination.

Huei has fallen silent, though the slight opening of his mouth betrays his astonishment.

Ben-Avi's smile has slipped, slightly, as he looks at both of them; but then it softens into a look of understanding. "Good friends should be able to hold a conversation, I should think," he says, gently. "I should think that is your right."

Tears start again at the corners of Obi-Wan's eyes.

"Yes, sir." Huei's voice is a little hoarser than usual.

"Ben-Avi."

"Ben-Avi," Huei says. He pauses. "Thank you."

"Go on and sit," Ben-Avi says. "I've taken the liberty of ordering lunch for later. I don't think we'll be done until late afternoon at the earliest, and we need to eat before that dratted press conference."

When Obi-Wan is seated with Huei next to him and Ben-Avi opposite, they begin.

"The listener places his hand loosely over the speaker's, like so," Ben-Avi says, placing Huei's hand over his own writer's hands. "At present, I am the speaker, and Huei the listener. There are thirty-four aurebesh letters and ten numbers. Each number and letter has a corresponding arrangement and position of the fingers and hand. Huei, feel for the position of my fingers. Obi-Wan, watch." Ben-Avi curls four fingers into his palm, leaving his thumb straight, parallel to his knuckles. "This is Aurek. And Besh," – he presses his thumb across his palm and straightens his other four fingers – "And Cresh…Cherek…Dorn…"

By the end of the long list, Obi-Wan's head is spinning with simply remembering the visual shape of the letters; he cannot imagine what it must be like for Huei, who can visualise the letters only by feel.

"Now you try, Obi-Wan," Ben-Avi says, placing Obi-Wan's hand into Huei's. "Copy me. Aurek."

Obi-Wan looks at his hand, curled in the loose grip of Huei's dark blue fingers, and copies Ben-Avi.

Huei's hand ghosts over Obi-Wan's in a phantom touch, webbed fingers spread lightly. Lightsaber callouses flicker over Obi-Wan's knuckles.

"Besh, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan hurries to comply, already feeling the beginning of a headache form.

It is the best headache he has ever had in his life.

An hour later, he is the proud owner of a splitting headache, sore fingers, gritty eyes, and a beaming smile wide enough to cross the galaxy.

Huei sits quietly by himself, fingers moving in shapes as he mutters letters under his breath. Every now and then, his teeth show themselves in a flash of pearly white as he grins.

Ben-Avi sits back in his chair with a grunt, massaging his neck. "It might seem difficult to remember at first," he groans, "especially since you have to remember solely by feel, Huei, but once both your fingers get used to the movement you will be able to spell words directly into each others' hands." His frock-coat lies on the back of his chair; his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and he rubs his wrists sheepishly. "I need to get in more practice, too. But first, food."

They devour their lunch – Endorian chicken sandwiches – with gusto (and Ben-Avi showing the appetite of a much younger man) and move on to the next lesson with equal verve.

Ben-Avi removes a datachip from his pockets and sticks it in an egg-sized datareader. "Try applying what you've learned, Obi-Wan," he says. "Say something to Huei. I'm going to get dessert. If you forget a letter, consult this." And then he is off, lanky form disappearing into the corridor.

Obi-Wan waits for a few moments, considering what to say. Huei waits with him.

Obi-Wan tilts his hand to the side and points two fingers to his left. Herf.

Another. Esk.

Leth.

Leth.

Huei's lips are beginning to twitch.

…Osk.

"Hello," Huei repeats. "How original."

Obi-Wan makes a swing at Huei's head with his other hand. Huei ducks the blow easily.

Grinning, they both settle as Obi-Wan considers his next sentence. What does he want to say?

His smile slips.

He wants to say–

Everything.

And therein lies the answer.

All the words he could not say from the moment he picked up a stylus, that were too impulsive to put down in writing and too angry for his ink, too brash and too uncontrolled and too loud, running wild in his head like the song of a whirlwind only he can hear with nobody to listen to it with him, wind, wind like the rising storm on faraway world he dreams of at night, of deserts and sandstorms and cities on a cloud, and clarion voices and two suns forever singing to one another, and him singing back, with a voice that is his and his alone–

Isk.

I.

Wesk.

W.

Aurek, Nem, Trill–

I want to speak.

Obi-Wan finishes the sentence, and his fingers fall limp.

Huei too is no longer smiling. His white, scarred eyes are angled down at the hands he cannot see.

"I want to see," he says, softly. Like an admittance.

They sit there, two young friends holding their first conversation, and each fall silent in their own way.

Then Huei's other hand slips under Obi-Wan's, and he moves his fingers slowly, with deliberate thought.

The letters register sluggishly in Obi-Wan's mind.

B-U-T-I-C-A-N-H-E-A-R-Y-O-U-N-O-W

But I can hear you, now.

Obi-Wan blinks. Oh.

And everything is all right again so abruptly it is like he is lifted out of his body and slammed back to life again in one bright-limned instant.

"Thank you," he says with his fingers, flickering in response.

"You're welcome," Huei says with his voice.

"I…have…something…else to say," Obi-Wan says, slowly. That one takes a while to sign. He makes a mental note to choose his words more efficiently until his fingers grow more used to this new language.

"Yes?"

"Master Qui-Gon." Signing is so tiring at this point to his newly-trained fingers that Obi-Wan almost leaves out the master; but he forces his hand to make the motions. He will not skimp on respect for ease.

"What about him?"

"He," Obi-Wan stops. Then begins again. "I."

Huei waits for him to start again, without interrupting. Obi-Wan can appreciate that.

He is also guiltily glad that Huei cannot see that he is about to start crying again. For entirely different reasons, of course, but then Qui-Gon is not here to see his tears.

But then that is the whole point.

Qui-Gon is not here.

"I want," he says. His fingers are starting to tremble, and Huei's brows are drawing together with the effort of understanding Obi-Wan's signs.

Obi-Wan starts again, because he will not leave a sentence broken. He is saying this if it will end him.

"I want Master Qui-Gon back."

There.

That should cover everything, in as few words as possible.

Obi-Wan's vision is blurring. His hands are shaking so much now that he is barely aware that he is sobbing, huge, wheezing, airless gasps that shake him from boot-tips to shuddering padawan braid.

And then Ben-Avi is there and holding his shoulders and saying something to him, but none of it registers, and Huei has let go of his hand and pulled Ben-Avi away, and there are murmurs out of the edge of his hearing about him, he knows, and he is almost fifteen and this is stupid and he is better than this, and if he could just stop crying he could stick a hand in Huei's palm and another in Ben-Avi's and apologise for being the child he wishes he wasn't, and not being the adult he wishes he were. For not being worthy of his apprenticeship.

The whole blasted building is quaking. Or it seems to be, at least, because the Force is trembling, and that means the whole universe, in that moment, is unbalanced. And wrong.

Everything is wrong.

Perhaps Qui-Gon had wanted to apologise.

Perhaps Qui-Gon had been too worried about something to apologise to him.

But what was it that Qui-Gon has not told him? That question at the end of the Council meeting?

Another thing Qui-Gon has not told him, aside from sign language.

Perhaps Qui-Gon did not look at him because he did not want to tell him.

Perhaps Qui-Gon hadn't planned to apologise at all.

The training bond is still and dark and silent at the back of his mind, and Obi-Wan lets it be.

Chapter Text

There is a hitch in Qui-Gon's step as he steps out of the turbolift into the murky half-light of the deep underlevels.

"Qui-Gon?" Feemor murmurs as Mace emerges last and sides the turbolift door shut again behind them.

Qui-Gon dry-swallows twice; forces himself to take a deep breath of the rancid air. "It's nothing," he says evenly.

It is only half a lie, after all. Obi-Wan's end of the training bond is flickering with some unfocused emotion, but the barrier between them is still there, and Qui-Gon dares not breach it for fear of compromising what little there is left of their mental link.

The fact that Qui-Gon, Mace, and Feemor are actively searching for one of Obi-Wan's best friends – one that Obi-Wan does not know is even in danger, and possibly at the hands of Xanatos DuCrion at that – makes it worse.

Qui-Gon scowls and forces the thought out of his mind. There is no place here for former padawans and grievances, not now. He can thrash Mace in the training salles later for not giving him the chance to speak to Obi-Wan.

Mace gives him a narrow-eyed stare before starting down the gloom-filled street. Qui-Gon ignores it in favour of controlling his stomach, unsure if the sickly pallor of his hands are truly from the dirty neon lights above.

"This way," Mace says as he leads them over grime-matted duracrete to an alleyway ending in a single, unlit archway. Any beings that pass on the street behind them flicker in a stop-motion pantomime as faces turn towards the three brown-cloaked figures, note the lightsabers on their belts, and steps quicken away from the area.

"Didn't you say this was a holo-game den?" Feemor whispers as he scrutinises the doorway. "These walls don't seem sturdy enough to hold in the sound of something of that magnitude. Shouldn't we at least hear the synth-bass by now?"

The archway remains in sinister silence.

The three Jedi unclip their lightsabers.

Mace's fingers fly over a recessed keypad so caked with filth that the numbers on it are indiscernible.

The door groans in its tracks as it tugs itself open, like a hundred little hands scraping along abused tile. The chamber beyond is lit only by the glowing, artificial lights of holo-screens, sanguine reds and bruised purples.

It is completely silent and empty.

Blue and violet lightsaber lights join the garish colours of the game-consoles as the Jedi move through the still air of the game den, with only silent holograms and the tense hum of 'sabers for company. Qui-Gon glances at Feemor as they pass on either side of a fighting game, just in time to see a well-armed Trandoshan bury a war-axe into the skull of another, spraying hologrammed blood in a fan of scarlet across Feemor's ghostlit cheek.

The lack of any sound as the character raises his gore-smeared axe and laughs his silent victory makes the calm thud of Qui-Gon's heartbeat in his own ears seem overly loud.

The Force is uncharacteristically quiet, too – but there is a glimmer in the Living Force a few rows away, and the Jedi move soundlessly towards it, lightsabers at the ready.

A raw-throated yell rends the air as a lithe silhouette leaps out from behind the last row of consoles. The neon lights of the nearest screen glints off the edge of a small vibroblade as it plunges towards Qui-Gon's stomach.

Qui-Gon leans casually out of the way, catches the figure's wrist with his non-dominant hand, and squeezes once.

The shout turns into a whimper of pain as the assailant drops the vibroblade. It clatters to the floor as its owner falls to their knees.

Qui-Gon brings up his lightsaber to rest, humming dangerously, at the edge of an orange-skinned chin.

"Speak," Qui-Gon says, baritone voice final. "Are you Fyrnock?"

A striped head raises to reveal a white-marked face streaked with tears. "Y-yes."

Qui-Gon shares a significant look with the others. "Do you–"

He breaks off as she begins to sob.

"Don't do this. L-let me go," the Togruta girl gabbles, adolescent montrals trembling. "Please, I didn't mean to keep it from him. I-I was too scared, and I didn't know what to do. Please d-don't take me to him, please, he'll kill–"

"Two questions," Mace says. "Who is this person, and what did you keep from them?"

"Y-you're not with Sarlacc?" Fyrnock stammers, blue eyes wide as she stares at each Jedi in turn.

"No," Feemor says, frowning as the girl begins to sob again, but in obvious relief.

Mace pauses for a moment. Sighs. "Qui-Gon," he murmurs, and deactivating his lightsaber.

Qui-Gon glances at him with an unreadable expression, and directs his next words to his captive in a tone of gravity. "If I let go of your wrist, will you give us your word that you will not run?"

Fyrnock nods once, sniffing, and rubs her wrist as it is released, shrinking back until her hip bumps into the console behind her.

"Sit," Feemor says, "before you fall over." He slides a chair over to her with a flick of a hand, deactivating his lighstaber with the other.

Fyrnock flinches when the chair seems to move of its own volition, but perches on its edge when her knees tremble.

"My questions," Mace says, not unkindly – but without the trace of a true smile. "Who is this Sarlaac, and what did you tell him?"

"If-if I tell you, he'll k–"

"Kill you, we know," Feemor says. "We're trying to prevent that, and a whole lot besides. And we most probably know the answer to the first question already, but we would like confirmation.So talk."

"He's the head of the Cruorven," Fyrnock says, haltingly. "He-"

"What does he look like?" Qui-Gon interjects, eyes narrowed.

Fyrnock blinks. "Human, dark hair," she says. "Blue eyes – very dark blue. Pale skin. And he has a tattoo…or scar, I can't be sure. But there's a broken circle marked in red on his right cheekbone."

Xanatos.

Confirmed.

Feemor inhales sharply, even as a thunderous frown appears on Mace's brow.

Qui-Gon's expression does not change, even as his Force-presence contracts in on itself in a solitary point of ice. His hand is white-knuckled around his still-activated lightsaber.

"And what did you not tell him?" he presses, without any inflection in his voice whatsoever.

Her eyes fill with fresh tears. "My…my friend, Ezhno," she says as she scrubs at her cheeks with a grimy hand. "He's a ward of the Jedi Order. I knew, but I didn't tell Sarlacc even when he recruited him–"

"He recruited Ezhno?"

"If you find out, you're in, or you're gone." Fyrnock shudders. "Ezhno's a whiz hacker. He caught Sarlacc's attention. I had to bring Ezhno to him, and now Sarlacc's found out, and he'll killhim, I know he will, and then he'll come after me." She says the last part with such final, defeated certainty that Qui-Gon catches Feemor's slight shift to the side, as if wanting to reach for her shoulder to comfort her.

Qui-Gon opens his mouth to grill her further, but Mace cuts him off before he can do any more.

"Do you know where we can find this Sarlacc?" Mace says.

"…Yes."

"Then–"

"Then take us to him," Qui-Gon says, leaning forward with fire in his eyes. Mace's hand on his arm halts him halfway.

Fyrnock shrinks away, arms wrapping around herself.

Feemor steps between her and Qui-Gon, and somehow makes the motion look easily natural. "Take us to him," he says, calmly. "I swear no harm will come to you while we are with you."

Fyrnock audibly swallows. Blinks. Stares at her feet.

Then she looks up. "Are you trying to find Ezhno?" There is a pool of emotion in her eyes – guilt perhaps, mixed with something else, but whatever it is, it stills her shaking and steadies her gaze.

"Yes," Mace replies, silencing Qui-Gon with a burning glance.

Fyrnock straightens, slowly. Unclenches her hands from her arms. "Then…then I'll help you."

"Lead the way," Feemor says, stepping back courteously and even stooping to pick up Fyrnock's blade and handing it back to her as she pulls herself to her feet.

As Fyrnock's initial stumbling steps even out into a more normal pace, with Feemor's inane conversation filling the silent game den as he follows her, Mace grasps Qui-Gon's elbow as Qui-Gon makes to follow.

Qui-Gon narrows his eyes over his shoulder. "What."

"We'll most likely find him, where we're going," Mace says firmly, meeting Qui-Gon's blazing gaze with one of cool gravity. "Are you going to be better by then, or are you going to continue to exhibit the emotional control of a fresh padawan a week into his apprenticeship?"

Qui-Gon tugs his elbow out of Mace's grasp. "I don't know what you're referring to, Master Windu," he says, tightly.

A storm awakens in Mace's eyes at the last two words. "Watch where you tread, Qui-Gon," he murmurs. "Whatever happens to Xanatos DuCrion – for better or worse – it will not impact you alone. I can see it."

Qui-Gon strides after the other two of their party without deigning to reply, snapping off his lightsaber and hooking it onto his belt as he does so.

Mace stares after him for a moment, and then follows.

By the time the Senate attendant arrives with the message that the Holonet press interview is set up, and that Senator Palpatine and the press interviewer are ready and waiting, Obi-Wan has finished crying.

Or rather, he has vague recollections of silently sobbing for an undetermined period of time, and then eventually the sobs petered out until he sat there staring at the opposite wall with tear tracks still running down his cheeks, and Ben-Avi and Huei each grasping one of his hands.

And then the tears stopped, eventually.

Perhaps he ran out of them.

Obi-Wan runs a finger over the raw skin of his cheek and nods thanks to the Senate attendant.

Ben-Avi frowns as the door closes again. "We really don't need to do this if you don't want to, Obi-Wan," he says, turning to the boy sat beside him. "It's an interview, and not a press conference like we thought, but if it's still too much, you don't have to go."

Obi-Wan does not meet his eyes. He sticks a hand into Ben-Avi's instead, and finger-spells, "I'm fine."

"You are most definitely not fine," Ben-Avi frowns, glancing in Huei's direction and back.

Obi-Wan takes it to mean that Huei has explained a little of the reasons behind Obi-Wan's breakdown – and there is a little stab of betrayal here, even though he knows that Huei is far too careful to reveal anything truly personal.

Huei shifts uncomfortably from where he is stood by the window, picking up on the change in Obi-Wan's Force-signature.

Ben-Avi is still talking. "Why don't we push back the interview to another day and you can spend the rest of the afternoon here–"

Obi-Wan is on his feet before he can think about it. His right hand forms into a fist, thumb sliding between his third and fourth fingers, even as his left hand curls so that his left thumb and fingers form a circle, and he thrusts both hands out at Ben-Avi's face, staring his father in the eyes.

Nem. Osk.

No.

Stood there, face set, hands outstretched, Obi-Wan hopes that Ben-Avi will understand that was the equivalent of him shouting.

Ben-Avi does. Huei cannot see it, but the spike in Ben-Avi's non-sensitive Force-signature must be enough, because Huei lowers his head without a word.

"Fine," Ben-Avi says, slowly, with an attempt at a smile. "We will do what you wish, Obi-Wan – but if you change your mind at any point in the interview, just tell me." There is a pleading note there – a request for Obi-Wan to take care of himself.

Obi-Wan nods, and scrubs the dried salt-streaks from his face. He rearranges his cloak and tabards, and brushes his padawan braid behind his ear as he strides over to Huei and finger-spells into his friend's webbed hand.

"Let's go," he signs.

Huei nods without questioning him in a silent gesture of support, one that makes Obi-Wan smile despite it all – and Ben-Avi can only follow as the two Jedi padawans march towards war.

"I think I can say wholeheartedly on behalf of all of us at Galactic Coruscant News that we are very glad to have you here," the interviewer says, lekku flicking with excitement as she shakes their hands, reaching for Huei's without an extra word and pumping it up and down as Huei responds automatically, a little startled at the sudden touch.

Normally, Obi-Wan might have frowned at that. Now, he simply returns the interviewer's smile with a blank stare and moves towards his seat. Alephi frowns a little he passes by, but he does not bother to raise his head to look at her. There is too much of nothing within him at the moment; a numb emptiness that guides his feet and hands to where they should be and holds his head at the right level, but does not tell him to smile or to meet gazes or to do anything except sit there and wait. What remained of his heightened emotion has drained out of him bit by bit with every step he took through the Senate corridors.

"It's our pleasure to be here," Ben-Avi replies for the entire group, with the smile that all diplomats use; the one that is pleasant and yet secretly means it is not a pleasure at all. "I'll explain later," he murmurs to Alephi when she raises her eyebrows him as he comes to sit by her, Obi-Wan on her other side and Huei beside Obi-Wan.

"Ah, Senator Palpatine!" the interviewer enthuses, rushing over to welcome the new arrival into the studio. "Please, sit."

"I do apologise for my tardiness," Palpatine says genially as the interviewer waves him into a seat beside Ben-Avi. "Paperwork is the curse of every politician, I'm afraid. And there is also the matter of the other two padawans… we only have young Kenobi and Tori here, as I'm sure you've been informed. The Jedi Order were most insistent on the absence of apprentices Muln and Tachi– I hope you understand. The Jedi Order has its ways, I suppose."

"Not a problem at all," the intervewer says as she takes a seat opposite the group, brushing a lekku over her shoulder. "We are very grateful to you for organising this, Senator."

"You are very welcome, my dear," Palpatine says, kindly.

"Shall we begin?" the interviewer says brightly. Her smile wavers, though, as she looks over them.

Alephi and Ben-Avi's smiles are as faint as they are inoffensive. Huei looks the epitome of the Jedi – hands folded into opposite sleeves, smile as placid as a still lake. Obi-Wan is still staring straight ahead, eyes blank, hands in his lap.

"Why don't we start with young Kenobi and his family?" Palpatine suggests. "I know you must have a great many questions, my dear girl."

"Ah, yes!" the interviewer says. "It's the talk of the galaxy. Your Majesty, Minister Kenobi, I'm sure it came as a very great shock to the both of you when you encountered your son again. Could you tell us a little about his highness and the events surrounding your reunion?"

Alephi and Ben-Avi share glance, and Alephi replies with a gracious smile. "We are certainly very glad to see Obi-Wan again," she says. "It fills us with pride to see him grown."

The interviewer, for all her bright enthusiasm, does not miss the attempt to divert the question from a more personal angle. She turns instead to Ben-Avi, and tries again.

"Minister Kenobi. Were you aware before taking your post that your aide would be your son?"

"No," Ben-Avi says, setting his hand on his son's shoulder, despite the lack of reaction on Obi-Wan's part. "I am glad it was him – I would certainly not have survived the Senate incursion if it wasn't for Obi-Wan."

"Quite the hero, yes!" the intervewer says, smiling at Ben-Avi and Alephi. "And young mister Tori, too – tell us, Jedi Tori, have you and Obi-Wan been friends since childhood?"

Huei takes a moment to answer, surprised at the sudden attention. But perhaps that was her intention. Nevertheless, he inclines his head slightly and replies truthfully, "No. We met after the beginning of our apprenticeships."

"I see! How did you two become friends, then?"

Ventrux.

The Force shudders. Obi-Wan blinks rapidly. It is the most emotion he has shown since the beginning of the interview.

"I–" Huei pauses, hand stilling in an aborted move to reach up to his scarred eyes. "We undertook a joint mission. But I'm afraid that's classified."

"Oh! A pity," the interviewer murmurs, and then she turns back to Alephi and Ben-Avi, and it is like she never started asking Huei questions at all. "And how does Obi-Wan feel about the family reunion?" she says.

Ben-Avi looks her square in the eyes. "I think you should ask Obi-Wan that question," he says, matter-of-factly.

"Oh!" the interviewer says, flustered, as she turns to Obi-Wan. "I do apologise, your highness. I didn't realise you had a vocoder."

Obi-Wan blinks up at her, and slides a hand under Huei's as he resumes staring at a point somewhere over the interviewer's right shoulder.

"Obi-Wan says that he prefers not to use a vocoder," Huei says clearly. "He prefers signing."

"And you could translate for him?" The interviewer says. She does not wait for Huei to reply before continuing, "That's lovely! It is good to see that you two are such good friends. Your highness, was it strange being brought up in the Jedi Temple, knowing your royal heritage?"

Ben-Avi sits forward, slightly. Alephi's hand lands on his arm.

Huei's eyebrows are furrowed in concentration as he feels for the letters Obi-Wan spells into his hand. "Obi-Wan was not aware that he was of royal blood before meeting Minister Kenobi," he says.

The interviewer's eyes light up like a stratt that has found a particularly juicy morsel. "That must have been such a shock, poor dear," she says. "Has it impacted your plans for the future?"

A line appears between Obi-Wan's brows, and the meets the interviewer's gaze properly for the first time since she began asking him questions.

He shakes his head.

"No," Huei repeats for him, his frown showing that he too is confused about the question.

"Ah, so you won't be returning to Stewjon to fulfill any royal duties?"

Obi-Wan looks to his parents.

Alephi steps in. "The decision is Obi-Wan's. While we have discussed the topic of his royal status, and he has made a preliminary decision, we will be further discussing the specifics before making any official statements."

"Of course," the interviewer says, backtracking. "I simply assumed that after the events last year, you would wish to have his highness back with you."

"To which events are you referring?" Ben-Avi asks.

"The Zan Arbor incident," the interviewer says, seemingly taken aback at their confusion.

Obi-Wan and Huei's backs straighten at the same moment, the Force screaming in shock and warning, because how does she know–

"I'm afraid we don't quite understand," Alephi is saying. "We keep up with galactic news as much as any other royal family does, so I'm assuming you're referring to Jenna Zan Arbor, the fringe scientist recently sentenced to life imprisonment for sentient experimentation? I fail to see how that should be relevant to Obi–" the rest of her sentence is broken off in a gasp as Ben-Avi grasps her hand, white-knuckled against the reinforced fabric of her coat.

Ben-Avi's face is a few shades short of pure white.

"Darling?" Alephi murmurs, raising her free hand to his cheek. "What's wrong–"

"There were two," Ben-Avi says, numbly.

"What?"

"There were two Jedi apprentices," Ben-Avi says, voice cracking, crumbling. "The evidence presented at court against Zan Arbor was overwhelming, because two Jedi apprentices had infiltrated Zan Arbor's school and laboratory, and were caught and experimented upon. One– one escaped with scarring. The other was blinded. The holo evidence came from the Jedi retrieval team, but the apprentice's names were not revealed at the request of the Jedi Order."

Ben-Avi is staring at Obi-Wan now.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes, and looks away. He remembers writing his statement for the courts: stylus in his right hand, staring at the ridged scar that snaked down his forearm as he did; carved there by acid and blade and wicked, scarlet smile.

Huei refolds his hands and stares at the opposite wall, expressionless.

Ben-Avi's gaze skips from his son to Huei, and lingers on the scarring in those white-silver eyes.

Alephi makes a small, choked sound, hands flying up to cover her mouth as she looks between Huei and Obi-Wan.

"Obi-Wan?" she eventually says, brokenly.

Obi-Wan does not respond, but the hard angle of his jaw, turned away as he is, says enough.

The interviewer is staring at them all now, shocked horror on her features. "I thought you knew," she says. "Our source said – I mean–"

"My dear," a new voice says, and Obi-Wan turns to the speaker, blinking away the film of moisture over his eyes.

It is Senator Palpatine.

Logically speaking, Obi-Wan knows Palpatine has been in the same room this whole while; but not one of them had paid him attention, so now, it is strange to see him sweep into the mess that the interview has become and arrange the pieces.

"My dear," Palpatine repeats as he inclines his head apologetically to the interviewer, who looks close to tears by this point. "I think it would be appropriate to reschedule."

"Of course," the interviewer whispers. "I'm so sorry." She turns and speaks to the Rodian behind her, and the holocam crew immediately begins to pack up their equipment.

Palpatine graces the others in the room with a sympathetic smile as he passes to speak to the interviewer.

Obi-Wan looks from his parents to the interviewer to Palpatine and Huei and back, and wonders if he could feel any more numb than he already does. He remembers once reading an ancient text of war that said the greatest weapon a commander could use against an enemy was time; that raining down wave after wave of attacks on an enemy position would destroy any idea the enemy had of victory, and would leave them too frozen in their exhaustion and too numb to react should a final attack come.

Obi-Wan understands what that is like, now.

"We need to talk," Alephi says to him, swiping at the crystalline tracks on her cheeks with one hand as Ben-Avi takes the other.

Obi-Wan nods, mechanically. Glances at Huei and reaches out to his friend's Force-presence.

Huei's head tilts in his direction, and Obi-Wan knows he understands.

"He needs five minutes," he says, before inclining his head and making his careful way past them and out of the room.

Alephi nods, despite looking as though she wants to do nothing but pull Obi-Wan to her and never let him go.

"We'll be in the conference room next door," Ben-Avi says to Obi-Wan, as he and Alephi turn to go. "Take as long as you need. Come when you're ready."

Obi-Wan feels his chin dip, and his neck move, but he does not really feel as though he nodded. It is like his head nodded, but his mind did not; as though his body and his consciousness are completely disconnected.

He tries to ground himself by breathing, the meditation breaths Qui-Gon taught him in their first meditation, before they were even master and padawan, on a transport to Ilum for something as simple as a lightsaber crystal.

But all that does is remind him of Qui-Gon.

"Young Kenobi, if I might have a word?"

The voice breaks into Obi-Wan's reverie and hovers there, sharp. He raises his head to find Palpatine, who guides him to a deserted corner of the studio with a gentle hand.

Obi-Wan's skin crawls under the touch, but he is too lethargic to even protest, because that would require his stylus and his flimsi.

"I am sorry how this interview ended," Palpatine says, once they are in relative privacy. "I have no idea how that reporter knew about the details surrounding the mission to Ventrux. It was strictly confidential except to myself and a few other members of the Senate. I will see it investigated."

Obi-Wan bows his thanks, and tries not to reach out to the Force overmuch. The raw nothingness of Palpatine's Force-signature is something he is used to, now, having encountered it so often, but it still makes his stomach leap into his throat at the wrongness of it.

"Not a very good day we're having, are we?" Palpatine sighs, patting Obi-Wan's shoulder. "First the news from the Order about your friend, and now this. I was sorry to hear about what happened to your friend, Padawan Kenobi."

Obi-Wan processes that sentence. Blinks.

He raises his head, and pulls flimsi and stylus out of his belt.

What friend? What happened?

Palpatine takes the flimsi and frowns at it as he replies. "Your friend Ezhno," – and Obi-Wan twitches, waking from his dream-like state, because what – "went missing last night, likely at the hands of that extremist group, the Cruorven," Palpatine says. "In fact, Master Jinn is part of the team of masters sent to search for him – it was mentioned to me in the Senate-Jedi meeting this morning. Did you not know?"

The world is suddenly very clear.

It also begins to scream.

If Obi-Wan was dreaming, he is waking into a nightmare.

"Oh," Palpatine is saying, distantly. "Oh. I do apologise. There must be some reason Master Jinn did not inform you, surely?"

Obi-Wan's eyes slide up to focus on Palpatine's gaze, and he is suddenly aware of his heartbeat, racing into his ears, and the new pain that rises in his chest.

Surely there must be some reason Qui-Gon had not told him.

Just as there must be some reason he did not apologise for the incident with Ben-Avi, and the absence of sign-language–

Obi-Wan looks away, and gasps a breath. His fists clench at his sides, and the Force roars into a crescendo in his ears – or perhaps it is not the Force at all, but a part of his mind that voices what he cannot physically.

Palpatine's lips curve into a smile, though Obi-Wan cannot see it. "I understand, Obi-Wan," he says, softly. "This can all be quite unbalancing."

Obi-Wan squeezes his eyes shut. Anger rises like floodwater on the heels of pain, pushing restraint aside as water would burst from a dam–

Ezhno.

The anger vanishes as abruptly as it came.

The clarity remains.

If Obi-Wan paid more attention to Palpatine's face, he might have noticed the spark of displeasure in the Senator's eyes; but Obi-Wan is thinking too quickly to notice.

Obi-Wan draws himself up, and stands tall. His fingers loosen out of the fists they were clenched in at his sides; they now rest open. Relaxed. Ready. There is not a trace of anger in his eyes, now; only determination.

He bows his thanks to Palpatine before pivoting and taking his leave.

Palpatine waits until Obi-Wan has gone before allowing himself a single snarl.

Huei starts in surprise when he senses Obi-Wan's Force-presence exit the studio and immediately start towards him.

"Your parents are in the room down the hall," he begins – and then he feels a slim hand slipping under his, and he finds himself too busy trying to follow his friend's finger-spelling as he hurriedly follows Obi-Wan in the complete opposite direction. It certainly doesn't help that they are both new to this, and Obi-Wan's fingers sometimes miss the mark.

"Ezhno was what?" he yells as air opens up around them, echoing with the low murmur of hundreds of sentient voices. The Senate entranceway.

Obi-Wan's hand – the one not occupied with signing rapidly into Huei's, anyway –slaps him over the mouth once, before drawing back.

Ah. Keep quiet.

"What are we doing?" Huei hisses as they step into warmth, only for cool air to wash over them again a few steps later. His mind catches up to this fact once he has a few moments to think over the rapid signing, and notes that they must be passing in and out of the great columns of shadow cast by the giant pillars that support the outer dome of the Senate Building.

"Finding Ezhno," is all Obi-Wan says, fingers flicking so fast that Huei almost misses the last letter.

"Obi-Wan," Huei says.

Obi-Wan's signing hand reverses to grasp his fingers, instead, and pulls him into a run. The end of Obi-Wan's cloak flaps at Huei's chest, rough through the layers of tabards and tunics, and Huei slaps at it with a growl.

"Obi-Wan!" Huei snarls, channeling the tone Dooku used to favour in 'saber training.

Obi-Wan freezes so abruptly Huei crashes into him. It is only Jedi reflexes and shared effort that they both keep their footing.

"Sorry," Huei says after a slow breath. "But you're going to have to explain this, because I am not Garen Muln and so I am not going AWOL, so to speak, without good reason."

It is only now, when they are standing still, and neither of them are saying anything or trying to understand what the other is trying to say, that Huei notices the peculiarity in Obi-Wan's Force-signature.

Sharp, like a keen-bladed knife; as though a craftsman has taken a whetstone to it, and polished it raw until it gleamed pain-washed and bright-steeled.

Obi-Wan's fingers move under Huei's, efficient and elegant and far too practiced for a half-day's practice.

"Because I am done waiting."

And Huei understands.

Obi-Wan, who braved each Initiate day quietly, without sob or scream at bullies or threats; who waited for another to speak before writing down his own words; who could not speak for himself at an interview without an interpreter.

Obi-Wan, who will not stand by once again, and let others leave him behind.

This is Obi-Wan determined; with a purpose in mind so strong and unshakable that the galaxy cannot move him to give it up. There is something he must do, and he will stop at no cost for it, whether Huei will come with him or not.

Huei sighs.

"Then I will come with you," he says. Unspoken, not because he thinks it is a good idea; but because Obi-Wan is his friend, and this is Obi-Wan's reckoning, though he might not see it.

Just as the fight after Ventrux had been Huei's.

Huei feels the air cool as Obi-Wan's hand closes around his and tugs him into a sprint again; and he knows that Coruscant Prime is setting, and the sundial of Coruscant is slipping into night.

He knows that they are as well, as much as they might prepare for it.

(:~:)

"For a moment, I thought his control too perfect," the voice says, like ice crushing mud and rock; grinding and cold and creeping. "But it would seem that he is young and impressionable after all. He is coming, and his breaking is near."

Xanatos DuCrion kneels before the hooded hologram, and dares not raise his head. "What would you have me do?"

"Take him, and bring him to me," the voice says. "Kill Qui-Gon Jinn."

That brings a smile to Xanatos's features, now; puckering the scar at his cheek. "Yes, Master," he intones. "It would be my–"

He stops. Gasps on air that is not there. Feels his bones bend in on themselves, arching until he is sure they will break.

And then the pressure vanishes.

Xanatos falls to both hands and knees, retching, as the voice speaks again.

"Do not forget you are not my apprentice, weakling. You know the consequences should you fail." There is a twist of sick pleasure in these words; as though the speaker almost wishes Xanatos to falter, and take the punishment.

Xanatos swallows a mouthful of blood, and presses his forehead to the floor between his fingers. "My master," he says, and he knows it does not mean teacher, or guide, or mentor. It is used here in its worst form.

"You have the Togruta boy?"

"Yes, my master."

"Dispose of him in a convenient manner to me. As inconvenient as possible for the Jedi, naturally."

"Yes, my master. And I will bring Kenobi to you."

"See that you do," the voice says, laughter prickling at its edges like poison rustling through a decaying forest.

The hologram winks out, and in dim light, Xanatos DuCrion runs a finger under his lips and examines the scarlet on his glove. He raises it to his cheek, and brushes it over his scar.

The broken circle is painted red, as though it bleeds afresh.

Chapter Text

Ezhno awakes to the glare of strip-lights above and a sense of machine-like vibration through the smooth surface beneath his back.

He takes a moment to orient himself as he sits up, grimacing at the foul taste in his mouth. It is as though he has not brushed his teeth in days. The deep, mechanical shaking of the chamber travels through his hands and up his wrists, and it is only when he lowers his eyes from the bright light of the ceiling and blinks the last of the dark spots from his vision that he places himself.

Durasteel floor and walls, cheap strip-lights above. Two doors barely an arm-span in front of his outstretched feet.

A turbolift.

Which of course begs the question: Going up or down?

Ezhno rubs a hand over his face, and makes to stand. As he curls to tuck his feet under his weight, something digs into his stomach.

He looks down, and what he sees confuses him.

A package, wrapped neatly in plastifilm with a few wires leading out of it and into a blue, glowing crystal, secured to him by a seamless strap that wraps completely around his stomach.

A few possibilities occur to him as to what it might be, mostly fueled by holo-movies and rapid imagination. None of them are good.

There is a piece of flimsi tucked between the strap and the fabric of his Order uniform. Ezhno pulls it out with some difficulty; the package is secured tight against his abdomen.

Ezhno forgets to breathe.

The message is as blunt as it is terrifying.

The device strapped to your waist contains a kilogram of condensed tibanna, attached up to a timer set to a period of time that will remain undisclosed to you. When the turbolift door opens, proceed forward until the centre of the street and remain still. Remaining in the turbolift or close to it will result in immediate detonation of the device. Attempts to remove the device will result in its immediate detonation. Attempts to disable the device will lead to the same.

It ends with a stylised sarlaac in crimson ink.

That is it. No requests, or threats, or instructions beyond the turbolift and a short walk.

I'm done for,  his mind supplies.

Ezhno forces air into his lungs even as turbolift doors open and spill new light over him – over the flimsy in his hand and the pounding of the blood in his fingers, in his chest, in his neck.

He gets to his feet carefully, and steps out of the turbolift.

Onto the Senate Boulevard.

Oh.

A distant part of Ezhno's mind notes that the turbolift seemed familiar because it is one he had used before – the same one that Masters Windu and Tholme used to pull Ezhno and Quinlan out of the deepest of the Coruscant underlevels, nearly a year ago now.

Under Coruscant's artificially-lit evening sky, the Senate Boulevard is packed with milling currents of a thousand species. In the span of a heartbeat, a hundred different civilians cross the duracrete before Ezhno's frozen form before one notices the off-pale tint of his orange skin and the package around his waist.

Ezhno looks into the gaze of a young Dresselian male dressed impeccably in one of the Senate's many uniforms – an aide to a lofty politician, perhaps – and watches as understanding dawns in a spreading wave of horror across that wrinkled face.

The Dresselian's chest rises, and he opens his mouth wide.

Ezhno hears nothing, but he knows it must be a scream.

Every sentient in a hundred-metre range turns towards them in an instant.

The Dresselian's lips move, and Ezhno automatically lip-reads the word, mind moving where his hands and feet do not.

Bomb.

The effect is immediate. A wide half-circle of empty duracrete clears around Ezhno as bystanders scramble away, stumbling over each other and up the gleaming steps to the Senate Building in an effort to escape.

The sight reminds Ezhno of the flimsi still clutched in his fingers, and the instructions within.

So he swallows, trembling, and takes a step forward.

The crowd surges away from him like akul from bushfire, tripping and collapsing in a circular wave of fleeing beings; it is like Ezhno is the epicentre of a storm that sweeps the thronging multitudes of the avenue back, back, into side-streets and up to the Senate Building, until he is a solitary spot that moves slowly to the middle of the wide, empty boulevard, silhouetted against the bright lights of the kilometre-high towers above.

Ezhno stands there, hands fisted at his sides, the weight around his stomach rubbing against skin that recoils instinctively against the knowledge of what is causing it.

A flicker at the base of the steps leading up to the Senate – a member of the Senate Guard, high-plumed helmet sharp against the lights behind him.

Ezhno finds his voice, despite the desperate drumbeat of his pulse in his throat.

"Please!" he howls, as loud as he can – beyond his own knowledge, because he cannot hear his own voice – only that his throat rubs raw from the force of his stammering scream. "M'not the one doin' this, so-someone p-put this b-blasted thing on me!"

All that distance away, the Senate Guard leans forward. His lips are moving, but it is too far away to read.

The Senate Guard is joined by a dozen others. All raise their blasters at him in unison.

Ezhno panics.

"I'm deaf!" he yells, breaths coming short and quick, as the slow creeping horror of his situation breaks through the rest of the numb shell of his mind. Tears start in his eyes and his legs begin to shake.

A few of the blasters drop a little, as if their owners are uncertain.

The first tear slips over the brink of Ezhno's eyes, and he sinks into another layer of panic, because he is already deaf and what if he cannot lip-read too and they all shoot him to blasted smithereens–

He wishes he could feel the Force as Obi-Wan and Huei can, for aid in this unspeakable, overwhelming, dread-filled loneliness.

But perhaps the Force answers.

By some unspoken miracle, staring with black-edged vision at the unclear, far-off shapes that the lead guard's mouth is making, Ezhno understands.

Identify yourself!

"M'name is Ezhno, an' I'm a ward'f the Jedi Order!" Ezhno sobs. "Comm the Jedi Temple – please don't fire, I can't 'ear wha' yer all sayin', I'm deaf, I'm deaf, I'm deaf–" He repeats the last phrase like a mantra, as loud as he can for as long as he can, until his feels iron on his tongue.

That seems to have an effect, at least – one raises his wrist comlink to his lips.

Ezhno lowers himself to his knees, hands in the air, as the dam finally breaks, and the slow crystalline trickle on his cheeks turns into a flood.

The bomb is heavy around his middle, and every pulse of his heartbeat seems to bring it closer to going off.

(:~:)

Elsewhere.

A chamber unnamed, unbreathed, and undisturbed for aeons, with a pedestal at its centre, and a softly glowing pyramid hovering above it, casting the chamber in crimson.

A pale hand reaches towards it.

The man with dark blue eyes halts for a moment, hand a hairsbreadth from the surface of the pyramid.

He has been given no orders regarding this pyramid – perhaps his master knows not of its existence – and yet it is here. It is no larger than a closed fist, but this small, ancient thing may buy him his freedom from a master he did not choose; and should Obi-Wan Kenobi follow its call to this place, the man will take him, and present him beaten but still alive to Qui-Gon Jinn.

And then he will plunge Obi-Wan's lightsaber into Qui-Gon's heart, to finish what he should have done years ago, on Telos.

And when that is done, he will go see the greater shadow he serves so unwillingly with a broken Obi-Wan Kenobi in one hand and the pyramid and Qui-Gon's lightsaber in the other – and perhaps, perhaps he will be able to buy his freedom.

There is no room for failure.

The man with the dark blue eyes reaches for the shadowed Force, and calls it to obey him.

The pyramid trembles, and the light from its heart flares into a brilliant blaze even as the Force begins to hiss around it.

(:~:)

Obi-Wan presses a hand into the duracrete surface of the small landing pad, and frowns severely when the Force does nothing except murmur uncertainly at the edges of his mindscape.

He raises his head to find Huei crouching a short distance away, wearing an equally frustrated expression.

"Nothing," Huei confirms as he rises, dusting off a hand on his tunic. The wind catches his navy head-tresses and flicks them in agitated whips around his shoulders.

Obi-Wan turns his head towards the edge of the landing pad a few metres away, where the edge drops away to the cool night air of CoCo Town, far below. Away in the distance, emergency transports cluster around the Senate District – some unknown trouble there, but too far away to see with the naked eye.

Huei's sigh is almost lost in the wind. "Perhaps this is not as good of an idea as we thought, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan looks back towards his friend. Huei is kind enough to use we, and not you, but the message is there all the same.

Huei opens his mouth. Closes it again.

Obi-Wan strides over and sticks a hand under Huei's palm.

"Say what you want," he finger-spells.

Huei's expression morphs into one of reluctance, but he obliges. "Finding Ezhno will not be as simple as searching for him in the Force," he says, matter-of-factly. "He is not Force-sensitive. Coruscant is a planet of a trillion inhabitants, and that is assuming he is not off-planet."

"He is not off-planet," Obi-Wan says, fingers flicking with quick certainty.

A sigh. Huei reaches out to the night air with his free hand, and Obi-Wan feels the Force thrum.

"…I concur," Huei says, eventually. "Ezhno is not off-planet – but I cannot pinpoint his sector, let alone the district. If a team of masters was sent to search for him, they would have a much greater chance of finding him than we would."

Obi-Wan withdraws his hand and folds his arms. He knows he must be the picture of Qui-Gon in his most stubborn moments right now – and there is a twinge there, as he thinks of his master – but he will stand his ground.

He also does not say what he wishes to say – that a team of masters may be more powerful, but none of them are Ezhno's friends.

Obi-Wan and Huei are.

But what to do, if Ezhno is simply one semi-bright Force-presence in a trillion others?

The stone flute in Obi-Wan's sleeve grows warm, and he startles.

It has been…a good while since he thought of the flute at all. His flute is as tied to the river-stone in his pocket as the river-stone is to Qui-Gon – and both stone and flute are tied to the purity of the Force, a crystalline conduit that Obi-Wan is currently not.

The Jedi are the crystal of the Force.

He is currently anything but.

Obi-Wan knows he should use the flute in his sleeve, because the Force is whispering at him to do so; but he almost doesn't want to.

There is too much hurt inside of him. The dim edge of his mind where his training bond slumbers is the centerpoint of a frost-lined mist that covers his heart in the Force where a clear window should be, and Obi-Wan is…ashamed. To use the flute would be to admit this – to bare this bitter heart to the Force that had always been bright, and clean, and unstained to him.

Then Huei's hand falls on his shoulder, and Obi-Wan remembers the tang of ozone in the air and Huei's lightsaber clashing against his in his garden, high in the upper levels of the Temple, when the world for Huei was newly-cut in darkness and Obi-Wan sought to call him back–

–to clear Huei's heart of bitterness, much as the hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder shows Huei's willingness to do the same for him.

Obi-Wan nods once, and knows that although Huei cannot see the motion, he understands.

The landing platform is cool under his fingertips as Obi-Wan lowers himself to his knees by its edge, and he senses rather than sees Huei step back and wait. Familiar but long-neglected vines run under Obi-Wan's fingertips as he slides the flute out of his sleeve; it has been so long, but the hum of the Force in the stone remains.

The river stone at his chest is warm too, and he draws it out of his tunics and places it in front of him, as he did in the gardens of the Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children, when the flowers responded to his call on the Force and sprung anew.

He raises the flute to his lips, and begins to play.

The Force swells into a gentle rain, and patters at the window of his soul. It washes mist and mark and stain, and laps at the foundations of his training bond; flits in flute-notes to the river stone before his knees, and cascades over the platform edge in a waterfall of fresh-breathed crystal to seep into Coruscant's streets in an invisible layer of gold.

Ezhno. I need to find Ezhno.

Something crests the horizon, a dark singularity that steepens and curves the whole plane of the Force towards it, swallowing the tide of music whole, snatching notes and phrases and whole measures from Obi-Wan's song, until the flute slips from his fingers and clatters to the duracrete by his side, and he wrenches his eyes open to Huei's raw-throated yell.

"Wake up, Obi-Wan!"

The air seems to waver.

Obi-Wan rolls onto his hands and knees, forces his lips open, and gulps in a breath. The duracrete under his hands is crisscrossed with new vines – but they are are already yellowing in the centre, rotted at the edges. The flute, when he picks it up, is freezing cold. As is his river-stone.

He spends a few moments sitting there, staring wide-eyed at the flute and stone in his hands, and his friend, who hovers at arm's reach.

"Obi-Wan," Huei says. It is a testament to his growth that he does not keep the worry from his voice. "Did you find Ezhno?" He holds out a hand, expectant.

Obi-Wan is aware his hand is shaking as he finger-spells his reply, but he makes do.

"No," he says. "Something else."

"What else?"

"I don't know," Obi-Wan signs, shivering badly enough that his fingers shake. The feeling is still there, far away to their left and somewhere below their position.

Huei frowns. "Should we go to it?"

Obi-Wan's first instinct is to spell NO as forcefully as he can – but as his thumb begins to slide between his third and fourth fingers to form Nem, a thought occurs to him.

He is afraid. He knows that.

But it does not change the existence of whatever this singularity is.

His fingers pause, and change in arrangement. "Yes."

Huei pauses for a long while, and Obi-Wan feels his scrutiny in the Force.

Then: "Very well," Huei says. "Lead the way, and I will follow."

Obi-Wan smiles, and the Force warms slightly, despite the cold stone at his fingertips.

(:~:)

Ezhno's vision is so blurred with tears that he does not understand what the approaching russet-edged shape is until it halts before him.

He blinks though the blinding spotlights that pin him to his place.

Qui-Gon Jinn crouches in front of him with a smile equal parts serious and comforting.

"Master Qui-Gon!" Ezhno exclaims, the sheer relief of not being alone anymore flooding his numb limbs with new warmth.

And then he remembers what a kilogram of condensed tibanna can do.

"No, no, you gotta get outta 'ere, Master Qui-Gon, this could blow any minute–"

"It's all right, Ezhno," Qui-Gon says, speaking slow enough that Ezhno, even in his rising panic, can clearly read his words. "Could you read me that flimsi you have in your hand?"

"I dunno, I don't think–"

"Does the flimsi contain instructions and conditions in which the belt would be activated?"

"Yeah."

"Did of them say you could not read them to another person?"

"No."

"I'm unarmed, as anyone who is watching can see," Qui-Gon says, slowly sweeping back his cloak to expose his empty utility belt. "And I'm not going to tamper with anything on your person. So go ahead and read."

Ezhno unfolds the flimsi with shaking hands, and does as he is told.

Qui-Gon strokes a hand over his beard. "I see," he says.

"Master Qui-Gon," Ezhno mumbles.

"Yes?"

"Master Qui-Gon," Ezhno repeats. He does not really have anything to say – he only wishes for someone here with him, in this empty, silent boulevard and the cage of spotlights.

Qui-Gon's eyes soften. "Be brave, Ezhno. I need to confer with Master Windu. I will return soon."

Knowing Mace is here makes watching Qui-Gon walk back along the boulevard and disappear into the bank of spotlights a little easier. Ezhno breathes shallowly, and waits.

(:~:)

"Well?" Mace says shortly as Qui-Gon steps into the dappled shadow of the command tent, a little ways beside the steps of the Senate Building.

Qui-Gon raises his eyebrows at the tone, but explains the content of Ezhno's filmsi without preamble.

"He's doing as well as can be hoped at the moment," Qui-Gon replies, then quieter: "It seems likely that Sarlaac…Xanatos… is behind this. The note he held had the insignia of a sarlaac inscribed on it."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help," a quiet voice says from behind Mace. Fyrnock stands with arms folded, worry in her eyes. Senate and Coruscant guard personnel move around her without giving her more than a cursory glance, while her head keeps moving towards the tent flap – as though hoping to reach the person kneeling on the boulevard far beyond it.

"Ezhno was found," Qui-Gon directs at her. "That is enough."

A pool of harsh white light spills over them all as the tent flap peels back, revealing Feemor.

"Masters, a word," he says urgently, jerking his head.

Once all three Jedi are outside the tent, Feemor sighs and rubs a hand over his face. "Huei and Obi-Wan disappeared after the aborted Holonet press interview this afternoon."

"What?" Qui-Gon's hand drops to the comm on his belt and keys in Obi-Wan's comm frequency, only to receive a blare of static in return.

"I can't comm Huei, either," Feemor says. "Something must be blocking their comm frequencies."

Mace frowns severely. "How did this happen?"

"I'm not aware of the details surrounding their actual disappearance, but it seems salient points regarding the Ventrux incident was leaked to certain members of the press. It came up in the interview. Obi-Wan was apparently…emotional, earlier today. The queen and minister Kenobi thought he needed time to collect himself."

"I see," Mace murmurs, holding out a hand to stay Qui-Gon's pacing. "Do we have any idea where they are?"

"No," Feemor sighs. "Huei is not…blocking me, exactly, but he keeps sliding out of reach. But he is not in danger."

Qui-Gon reaches for his bond with Obi-Wan, and finds something in the way, oily and dark and slippery.

"Something is hiding them from our sight," he growls. "But yes, they are not in danger. Not yet."

Force, he misses Obi-Wan. He wishes many things, but right now he wishes most of all that he had spent the two minutes they had in the turbolift that morning with his hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder and an apology on his lips.

Mace strides past Feemor. Watches the folded figure of Ezhno, down the boulevard.

"We did not find Xanatos in any of the places Fyrnock led us to," he says, "though there were signs he was there before. That is significant."

Qui-Gon steps up beside him. "Mace?"

"We have almost reached a shatterpoint," Mace says, slowly. "But it is not here, where we are."

(:~:)

"Well, this will be lovely," Huei mutters. He has his hand pressed into a grimy wall, feeling the Force-echoes within. His headtresses flicker with distaste.

Obi-Wan grimaces, despite himself. Having tracked the singularity of hollow shadow across three sectors, and down five hundred levels, it is somewhat unexpected that there would be a wall in the way.

A wall with a crack in it that looks large enough for two adolescent boys to squeeze through, but appearances can be deceiving.

The air around the gap is thick with shadowed scent, like hovering wisps of putrid smoke.

Obi-Wan notes with a tired sort of logic that at least they are below the Temple district; returning home will not be difficult. This stretch of the underlevels is deserted, though, except for this massive wall that runs as far to the left and right as the eye can see. The dirty glow-lamps of the nearest street are a hundred metres behind them.

"Are we doing this, then?" Huei says, wiping his hand on his tunic and holding it out.

"Yes," Obi-Wan says, withdrawing his hand after replying and pulling a glowstick from his belt. Mostly for his benefit, but he knows he will have to lead. Huei may sense much with the Force, but in this enclosed space it would be better to look ahead for threats.

The glowstick washes the crack in the wall with dirty green light as Obi-Wan edges into gap. He bites his lip against the press of cold grime as he feels Huei place a hand on his shoulder and move in after him.

The passage is tall enough for both of them to pass without stooping, but the reek of Force-decay grows ever stronger as they push on, until the green light ahead of Obi-Wan seems dim and frail against the crushing weight of grey stone on either side and thick, choking air. It is only the warm Force-presence of Huei behind him that gives Obi-Wan the courage to push on.

And then abruptly, the walls peel back, and the two padawans stumble out into a cavernous, echoing space so large that the pool of limpid green light melts at its edges into pure sable shadow.

The air is cool and quiet and absolutely still – the kind of stillness that makes one wary of moving.

And yet, the singularity is there, far in the distance beyond this little oasis of light; a place felt, and not known.

Huei's hand is tight on Obi-Wan's shoulder. "We should not be here," he whispers, and it seems as though he shouts the words, so dead and dark is the air. "This place…feels…wrong."

The wall behind them takes the last word and ricochets it into the distance, warping the syllables even as the echoes build layer by layer.

Wrong. Wrong.WRONG.

Obi-Wan fights to control the hammering of his heartbeat at Huei's words, takes his lightsaber from his belt, and activates it.

The hiss-snap of plasma leaping out of its hilt is deafening, and the pool of green light washes cerulean in an instant, spilling further outwards.

An immense face looms out of the shadows.

Obi-Wan nearly elbows Huei in the stomach as he stumbles back in fright; Huei responds to his flare of panic by leaping away and activating his primary 'saber too, doubling the light and throwing abstract shadows across the floor.

It is only when Obi-Wan gasps in a breath that he realises the face does not have a Force-signature, or any presence in the Living Force at all.

The panic clears from the edges of his vision, and reality reforms.

Fifty paces ahead, the head of a gigantic statue hewn from black stone, laying at its own feet, severed at the neck. Its blank irises stare upwards, and Obi-Wan raises his lightsaber with a somewhat unsteady hand to reveal colossal, obsidian pillars stretching in row upon row into the distance, where they are consumed again by shadow, black upon black. The ceiling of this massive chamber is just at the fringe of the fragile shell of light cast by the two lightsabers; the carvings etched there form vague, humanoid shapes that twist and dance without meaning.

"What is it you see?" Huei hisses in Obi-Wan's ear.

Obi-Wan jumps like a womp-rat startled in its den, but his signing hand is steadier now as he says, "Huge statues and pillars." Then, after a moment's thought: "Not Jedi."

It is true; the sleek, unmarked columns and the unfamiliar clothing of the statue appear in none of the volumes of Jedi history he so voraciously consumed in his Initiate days.

Huei's lips thin, but he follows close as Obi-Wan leaves his glowstick by the crack in the wall takes a few, cautious steps forward.

Each step of standard-issue Jedi boots on black stone sends a cacophony of echoes lancing into the nothingness, but as they slip past the fallen head – the neck's width thrice as tall as Obi-Wan's height – they learn to soften their tread, and shift their weight with more care.

So they move on, accompanied only by the rasping sound of their breaths, the shifting of their tunics and cloaks, and the low, warning hum of their lightsabers.

They walk for an indeterminate time, towards the empty singularity far ahead, until the emerald light of the glowstick fades away behind them and they walk in 'saber-light alone. The ground slopes down before them. With each step, the air thickens and cools, curling frozen fingers into their throats and chests and around the fresh columns that loom out of the darkness. Many are intact. Some are not. Obi-Wan pauses by a column that has been slashed down almost to his height, huge, crumbled pieces scattered around its base. It is as wide across as the standard small practice salle; enough for ten travelling backflips. Obi-Wan flattens his palm against the marbled stone as Huei does the same, finding it smooth, ice-cold, and utterly unyielding.

It makes one wonder what could have shattered it like so.

Obi-Wan is about to continue forward when Huei's hand clamps down around his wrist, vice-like.

"I sense something ahead," Huei murmurs, in a voice so quiet that Obi-Wan has to strain to hear him. "We're not alone here."

Obi-Wan squints towards the edge of the circle of cerulean luminance, and realises, belatedly, that what he took for round mounds of rubble are…not.

He edges forward another cautious metre, and the edge of light reaches the closest mound.

An almost-spherical rock that is twice as high as an average human, topped with a single ridge of irregular white projections that curve from the middle of one side of the rock down to the ground on the opposite, where it tapers off and curves underneath. Plates of off-white and dull black stone overlap each other all the way around the rock, except for the long ridge, in strange symmetry. The entire thing pulses with a slow, torporous energy in the Force, as though it is barely more than dead stone.

For a moment, Obi-Wan's mind struggles with what is in front of him; his eyes follow lines and shapes and shades and finds no correlation with anything he has seen before.

And then it clicks, and his veins flash cold.

That is not a simple ridge curled around the stone; that is a spine, and the white projections spinal processes. The overlapping plates may seem disorganised at first glace, but further examination draws boundaries – a shoulder there, a side there, a hip there, four many-jointed fingers…

The rock is not a rock at all.

It is some skeletal creature curled in on itself, slumbering too deep for the Living Force to reach in anything but a trickle. A creature already twice as tall as a human when curled up, but if it should stand…

Moving painfully slowly, Obi-Wan slides a hand under Huei's.

"Large creatures. Asleep," he says.

It is a testament to how much Huei is afraid to make a sound that he reverses his hand and finger-spells back, "Dangerous?"

"If they wake."

"'Sabers off," Huei signs. "I can sense them. I'll lead."

Switching off his lightsaber at this point is about the hardest thing Obi-Wan has ever done in his apprenticeship. Huei's primary lightsaber is back opposite his secondary on his hips for a solid five seconds before Obi-Wan deactivates his blade with a snap, plunging them both into complete darkness.

Huei tugs at their linked hands, and Obi-Wan follows.

Obi-Wan knows, logically, that Huei's Force-sense capabilities have increased dramatically since he was blinded, but it is still a shock to feel how close the first of the creatures are before Obi-Wan can pinpoint its exact location. Huei was right; if Obi-Wan were the one to lead them around these creatures, they would have strayed much too close.

The world condenses into shallow breaths, steps with feet carefully placed, and the endless, prickling feeling of dread.

But the singularity is very close, now.

Eventually, Huei's hand loosens slightly, and relief trickles out from his Force-presence. Obi-Wan takes it to mean that they are now a significant distance from the last of the creatures, and holds back a breath of relief.

A solitary point of crimson light emerges in the distance.

Both young Jedi pause for a moment, and then, without needing to communicate, continue towards it. They have both made the same decision in unison.

Soon, they find themselves facing a set of steps hewn from the same black stone that rise a short way upwards to a set of massive, carved doors. Red-white light bleeds out from between them – the door on the right is slightly open, leaving a gap three hand-spans wide into whatever is beyond. The light is unnaturally bright – and when Obi-Wan closes his eyes for an instant, he finds it is visible in the Force, too – a tangible wall of crimson.

Obi-Wan and Huei stand shoulder-to shoulder before the doors and unclip their lightsabers from their belts, though they do not activate them.

Huei's webbed hand is tight on the hilt of his primary blade while he reverses his secondary into a shoto grip. When he is ready, he nods once.

They edge through the gap.

The Force lurches, and both young Jedi activate their 'sabers as their comms are ripped from their belts.

"Intriguing," the dark-haired man with deep blue eyes comments as he closes a gloved hand and crushes the two comlinks midair. "I was told you would come alone, Padawan Kenobi." There is an edge to the word padawan, as if the word is gnawed upon before being spat out.

A line forms between Huei's brows, and he raises his 'sabers. "And who are you?" he calls, headtresses flickering around his chin as they scent the air for any information about the man whom Huei cannot see.

Obi-Wan squints at the figure before them, and discerns the source of the red-white glare – a pyramid lined with metal and etched in crystal patterns, hovering on a pedestal just behind the man. This chamber itself is not larger than twenty paces across, but intricate carvings spread in inky, concentric patterns from the pedestal across the floor and up the circular walls to its vaulted ceiling. More chillingly, the source of the miasma of darkness is not the man before them – it is the thing on the pedestal that whispers dangerously in the Force.

"My name may not be known to you," the man directs at Huei, before his eyes slide over to Obi-Wan. "But perhaps it is to your friend, if his master ever overcame his cowardice long enough to tell him."

Qui-Gon?

Obi-Wan frowns for perhaps a moment too long – the man barks a laugh that sounds as though he is in pain, and shakes his hair free of his face, angling his head so the fiery light of the pyramid on the pedestal behind him flickers across his right cheekbone.

A scar, shaped like a broken circle – the exact shape and size of a ring a grown man would wear.

Obi-Wan inhales sharply.

"My greatest pride, and my greatest failure," Qui-Gon had told him with a pained smile, when the braid behind Obi-Wan's ear was newly-braided and the history of their lineage fell on ears eager to listen.

Naboo, and Eir.

Xanatos DuCrion, Qui-Gon's former padawan.

The man who took his father's ring from a burning hand and pressed it to his own cheek, and swore vengeance against his former master for the death of his father.

The shock must have shown on Obi-Wan's face.

"You do know me, after all," Xanatos says, and smiles a smile like a rending of the night sky. "I would ask if you had any questions, but I am told you wouldn't be able to voice them, anyhow, so I'll ask a few questions of my own." His hand falls onto the sleek lightsaber hilt at his side, and his smile widens at the way both padawans sink deeper into their stances, though he does not activate his own blade.

"Question one: Do you know where we are?" Xanatos says, as easily and silkily as creeping slime.

Neither Obi-Wan or Huei respond.

"Hmm," Xanatos tilts his head. "Seems that the Junior Padawan curriculum isn't quite up to par, now. Tell me, young Nautolan: Do you know what lies under the Jedi Temple?"

Surprise flits through Obi-Wan's tense preparedness. This is unexpected.

"No, and is there a point to this?" Huei says, shortly.

Dark blue eyes snap towards Huei. "I would watch my tone, if I were you." Xanatos pivots on a heel and begins to circle the pedestal, flicking long fingers over the hovering pyramid without touching it.

Obi-Wan shakes his head to clear it as the soft whispering that emanates from the pyramid rises into rapid hissing.

"This was the original centerpoint of the Force on Coruscant," Xanatos says, the red light of the pyramid lending his irises a sanguine tint. "The place which, at a later point in history, the Jedi built their Temple." He stops. Glances above their heads.

"But the Jedi built their Temple above another," he says. "That of the Sith."

The word lances into Obi-Wan's soul, sends fear racing down his limbs like never before.

Xanatos is still looking above their heads.

Obi-Wan knows he should not turn his back to his opponent – the first rule that Qui-Gon had taught him in lightsaber combat – but his neck prickles, and he finds his head turning despite himself.

This side of the doorway is etched as intricately as the other – but it is lit fully by the light of the red pyramid. At the centerpoint of the doors is a circle, framed horizontally by three-pronged, serrated shape on both sides. Together, they form a darkened sun, edged in crimson flame.

It is a sigil Obi-Wan has seen only in holo-volumes.

The mark of the Sith.

Which means, logically, that the pyramid in the centre of the chamber must belong to the Sith, as well. Obi-Wan turns back towards it, mind racing.

A Sith Holocron.

Xanatos notices, and his smile curves. "I see Qui-Gon didn't choose you out of pity alone," he says. "I wouldn't get any ideas about taking this holocron."

Huei falls even stiller beside Obi-Wan. It occurs to Obi-Wan that Huei cannot see the holocron – so for him, there are only the screaming hisses and the empty, swallowing singularity in the Force.

Obi-Wan takes a half-step to his right, and Huei, sensing Obi-Wan's intentions, deactivates his shoto and clips it to his belt, holding out his hand.

Obi-Wan finger-spells as simply as possible, and trusts Huei to fill in the blanks for him.

Huei frowns as he processes the words, and says clearly, "Are you taking it for yourself, then?"

"Yes, and no," Xanatos says, running a finger along the pedestal. "I am leaving this place with this, and you Obi-Wan," he says, eyes narrowing into snake-like slits, "as my revenge."

Obi-Wan's fingers are already moving, but Huei beats him to it by snarling, "Not while I'm here."

"Oh, but you won't be here," Xanatos says, calmly.

Two smooth steps, and Obi-Wan is stood in front of his friend, 'saber at the ready.

Xanatos breathes a chilling laugh. "I'm not going to kill him, Obi-Wan. He's not going to be here because of this."

An impossibly fast flicker of fingers, and a small, glowing object curves towards them; Obi-Wan throws out a hand and it comes to a sudden stop at arm's length from his face.

A small blue crystal. It hums with Xanatos's Force-signature, bobbing on the Force-borne currents that hold it aloft.

Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows at it before his gaze slides back towards the man by the pedestal.

"Oh, I have it on good authority that you'll be interested in that thing you're holding," Xanatos says. "It's a key."

"To what?" Huei says, deadpan. "Are you done talking, or is there a point to all th–"

"Oh," Xanatos replies, casually. "A key to the bomb your Togruta friend has strapped to his waist."

Obi-Wan's hand – the hand using the Force to hold the crystal aloft – closes into a fist, and the crystal shivers in the air.

"Do be careful. It's the only copy."

The Force – what little light can be felt in this shadowed room – rings true.

Obi-Wan grits his teeth, furious, as he calls the crystal into his hand.

"Where's Ezhno?" Huei snarls, speaking his mind for him.

"You'll have to figure that out, won't you?" Xanatos says, eyes sliding over to him. "But I would hurry if I were you."

Obi-Wan glances at his friend.

Huei senses it, and stiffens further. "No," he says, firmly.

Obi-Wan deactivates his lightsaber. Crosses to Huei.

"No," Huei repeats, even as Obi-Wan's fingers form letters in his hand.

"Tell Qui-Gon I forgive him, and I'm sorry," Obi-Wan says, fingers sure despite the flickering of his Force-presence.

Huei takes a breath, as if to refuse again–

"Ezhno," Obi-Wan signs.

For a moment, he is sure Huei will stand his ground.

And then Huei's hand slides over Obi-Wan's sleeve, and he grasps Obi-Wan's forearm as the Knights of the ancient Order used to do, warriors in wars against the Sith.