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Obi-Wan yawned. He was not sure whether he was more tired or hungry after who knew how many days spent in the wilderness, on the run with his master and the young duchess they were protecting. Sometimes when his nerves were frayed he let her provoke him into an argument about whether the Jedi were promoting peace or hindering it, but she did have her moments. At first he had thought that she hated him in particular, since she did treat his master with some respect, but then there was that time when she helped dig him out of the rocks that had fallen on him when he pushed her out of harm’s way. Maybe she didn’t hate him after all. Non-Jedi women were hard to read.
“Ben, I caught a fish. Your master will likely say it’s too cruel to kill and eat this innocent fish, but I don’t want to starve. Can you clean it? I’m not squeamish but I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing.” Satine came up to him, a slimy, thrashing fish caught by the tail in her iron grip. How did she make a live fish look like an elegant accessory?
“Let’s see.” Obi-Wan smiled at her joke about his master and pulled his field knife out of its sheath. “Keep hold of the tail for me, please.” With a flourish, he grabbed the fish’s head in one hand to hold it steady while he sliced it open along its belly with his other hand. He was most assuredly not trying to impress her. The thrashing stopped, allowing him to pull out the innards, scrape off the scales with his knife, and spear it on a long stick for roasting over a fire. His master should have a small campfire going by now. Satine smiled her thanks and took the fish on a stick to Qui-Gon.
Obi-Wan made a detour to the stream to wash his hands. He peered into the water first to make sure there were no hostile lifeforms. The water was fairly placid, so that he could see his own reflection. Force, what a mess. Satine looked all right and his master always looked the same with his beard and long hair partially pulled back, but Obi-Wan himself had some light ginger stubble and his overgrown padawan cut was at the awkward length. Hair tickled the tops of his ears and his neck and drooped onto his forehead. They had not expected to be here in the Mandalorian system this long, so he had not brought his clippers or his haircutting cape. He had let his hair grow long and wild on Melida/ Daan as well, but he had left the Order that time. This time he was still an official padawan. He had been so relieved and grateful when Master Yoda accepted him back into the Order that he had taken to putting a little extra effort into looking the part.
His army knife would have to do. At least it had a tiny scissors. Here goes. Obi-Wan grabbed some overgrown hair above his ear and set to work cutting with the tiny scissors. This would take all evening, since he had a lot of hair and the scissors were tiny, but he could at least put a dent in the project. The areas that especially drove him crazy, at least, he could prioritize.
He had been working steadily for perhaps ten minutes when Satine came and found him. “The fish is cooked. Ben? What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He didn’t mean to be snippy with her, but the slow progress was frustrating. His hand ached. Besides, he could tell that she was trying not to laugh.
“I can see what you’re trying to do, but you’re not succeeding. Why don’t you take a break from that and come to dinner. Believe me, nobody can see the difference. I can help you after dinner. I have a bigger pair of scissors.” Satine beckoned to him to follow as she headed back toward camp.
“All right, if you say so.” At least she was offering to help and not just laughing at him. “If you do, don’t cut the nerftail off at the back and whatever you do, don’t cut my padawan braid.”
“Of course I know that much. I wouldn’t make a mistake like that. Trust me.” Satine smiled at Qui-Gon as she took a seat on a log, gesturing to Obi-Wan to sit down next to her on the same log.
“It’s just that you’re not a Jedi and it’s very important.” He found himself hesitant to trust her even though she had impressed him with her survival skills at every turn. She turned out not to be a helpless little rich girl, but spending a year as a child soldier in a guerilla war had taught him to be sparing with his trust.
“How do you like that. I trust you with my life and the future of the Mandalorian system every day even though you’re half a year younger than me and a jetti, and you don’t even trust me to cut your kriffing hair? I know I’m not a professional barber but with that style, it shouldn’t matter. I didn’t think you were vain.”
He winced. “No, I don’t worry about how it’ll look. It’s just that—” He found himself at a loss for words. From the crèche he had had a reputation for his eloquence, but there was something about Satine that shut down his brain. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Qui-Gon’s eyes sparkling with amusement at his expense. How dare that girl embarrass him in front of his master!
“You think I’ll do a bad job? Or do you think I’ll stab you? Why would I want to kill or maim my protectors? I’m not stupid.” She could not say aloud that he was so adorable, no, handsome, that even a bad haircut would not matter. After all, the padawan cut was objectively an unflattering style by design and he still looked this good. Sometimes he was so annoying that she was sorely tempted to stab him, but she had heard his master’s whispered explanations of why he had so much trouble trusting people and what made him so insecure that he came across as cocky sometimes. People sometimes thought the same about her.
“I don’t think you’re going to do a bad job, and you’re right that you would be incredibly short-sighted if you tried or even succeeded in killing me. It’s just that I spent a lot of time in a war zone in which people actually were trying to kill me. You’ve survived assassination attempts yourself. You know what it’s like to not be able to trust anyone to let them into your personal space.”
“True, I do. But we wouldn’t have this problem if people stopped thinking they could solve problems through violence.” Satine bit into her portion of the fish rather aggressively. Obi-Wan knew better than to comment on the irony.
“That’s true.” Qui-Gon stirred up the fire a little, but exuded peace and calm. He had not interpreted her comment as an attack on the Jedi.
“It would be nice if I didn’t need to have a pair of Jedi protectors. You would be out of a job if everyone in the galaxy embraced nonviolence.” She was smirking.
“We are peacekeepers and diplomats, though some of us are healers, farmers, spies, pilots, or researchers. We’re not soldiers or even warriors.” Qui-Gon had his didactic smile playing about his eyes as he made his remark.
Obi-Wan bit his tongue. He had already had a lot of scars going into this mission, but he had some new ones from protecting her. Would it really kill her to show some gratitude, or appreciation, or how about respect?
“If you don’t want us anymore, just let us know and we can bugger off back to Coruscant so you can have your perfect pacifism.” He regretted the remark the moment it left his mouth.
“I didn’t say anything about not wanting you. I said I wish I didn’t need you. There’s a difference.” Satine sniffed. She wished she didn’t want him, either, but it was already too late for that. He had risked his life for her several times already, as had his master, but she suspected that he would have died for her even if it had not been part of his mission. Qui-Gon caught her meaning and smiled.
Obi-Wan himself was frowning, clueless. She was a pacifist, had rubbed this fact in his face at every opportunity, and yet she wanted to be allowed to protect herself? But the Duchess had been the one to request Jedi protection. Neither Obi-Wan nor his master were about to prohibit her from doing what she wanted.
“If I hated Jedi and thought them evil or useless I would never have asked for two of them to protect me, and I certainly would never have offered to help you maintain an objectively stupid haircut that proclaims your Jedi status. Let me get my scissors and we can get to work.”
Qui-Gon bent over the fire, pretending to be engrossed in tending it, in a desperate attempt to hide his smirk. If Obi-Wan wanted his master to trim his hair, he need only have asked. The girl had offered. She obviously liked Obi-Wan very much in spite of herself. Obi-Wan himself may not notice, but it was clear enough to those with the life experience to know. Obi-Wan had a lot of life experience of the violent kind, but apparently female admiration was new.
Satine found her scissors, which seemed to be either nail scissors or something from her sewing kit. They would get the job done better than Obi-Wan’s army knife, but not so quickly that he would not have the chance to enjoy having her close. He was still pondering what she had said at dinner when she directed him to sit on a tree stump at the edge of the forest, where there was more light. She decided not to mention that she had never cut anyone’s hair with nail scissors before.
“All right, here goes.” Satine ran her fingers through the rather grimy hair, noticing the way it glinted copper in the ephemeral shifting light of the sun setting in the west. If only he didn’t have to keep the silly nerftail and the ratty braid. A perfectly uniform long buzz cut quickly grew out into a dorky look. She would do what she could within the limits she had been given.
Obi-Wan hoped Satine had not noticed the chills that travelled up and down his spine when her hand brushed against the nape of his neck, presumably assessing how much length needed to come off. She plowed her fingers through his hair, digging her nails into his scalp as she worked her way up from his nape to his crown. He tried his best to suppress a shiver. No, do or do not, there is no try. Imagining that old green troll watching them might help him keep cool.
Satine took a deep breath and brought the scissor blades flush against his skin at the nape, holding them vertically in one hand and a fistful of hair in the other. The light snipping sound was not as loud as she had feared it would be. Somehow the sound of big, mean scissors hungrily working their way through thick straight hair in an otherwise silent forest would have made her nervous, she just knew it. Satine affected a casual air as she moved the scissors over to cut another strip. She could do this.
Her fingers and the warm metal of the scissor blades steadily climbed their way up from his nape, hugged the outline of his occipital bone, and eventually reached his crown. Wait a minute. He had expected her to grab hair between her fingers and slice off anything that protruded, but he realized that she had placed the scissor fulcrum flush with his skin, cutting his hair considerably shorter than he had expected. She was perhaps trying to avoid touching his scalp more than was necessary, but the result would be too short. He opened his mouth a sliver, trying to get up the gumption to say something, but at that moment she pulled down his left ear to crop around it, sending another wave of giddy electricity through his central nervous system, and he shut his mouth. It was too late, anyway.
Satine brought her face closer to his ear to see better as she snipped with the tips of the scissor blades. She could see the smooth line of his jaw, the exquisite architecture of his cheekbones and brow, the gentle flare of his nose, his color-shifting blue-green eyes, and could not help but be struck by how beautiful he was. He was also finally trusting her to not only enter his personal space but touch him with what could be a dangerous implement, a weapon even. She caught herself wanting to touch his face, to trace along his jaw with her finger, to stroke his freshly-cropped hair, but she pulled away instead, moving around to the other side to trim around his right ear. She let her fingers brush against his earlobe, not entirely by accident.
Now, for the top. She resisted the temptation to pet him like a child or a small animal. Satine lifted the hair with her fingers and cut, trying to leave just a tiny bit more length on top, because his usual cut was simply too dorky. As she leaned farther and farther over him, the roundness of her chest brushed against the base of his little nerftail. She hoped he wouldn’t use his Jedi senses to detect the pounding of her heart.
What was she thinking? He was smug, aloof yet strangely passionate, incredibly annoying, a typical jetti di’kut who was part of the problem even if he stubbornly refused to admit it—he had volunteered to stay in a civil war that did not concern him, had he not? —but he was also bewilderingly irresistible and completely vulnerable to her right now. Had he mind-tricked her? Or perhaps she had mind-tricked him, getting him to trust her. She was not sure whether she wanted to kiss him or slap him most days, and she hated that feeling of loss of control.
Oh yes, the nerftail. She did not feel ready to come out in front of him to cut the very front of his hair just yet, since he would see how much she was struggling to stay cool, but she could tidy up the nerftail. It would be nice to cut it off altogether, but she had promised she would not do that. She gently untied the cord and ran her fingers through the hair before retying the cord. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she trimmed the nerftail. The ends were brushing his collar, which seemed like it would be uncomfortable. Blunt, straight across. She held the little tuft of hair in one hand as she sliced through it.
Satine could no longer postpone coming around to face him. As she was steeling herself, Obi-Wan broke the oddly reverent hush that had settled on them. “Remember, don’t touch the braid. Only my master has that right. The beads have meaning.”
Satine rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know.” Obi-Wan himself had broken the spell. She moved to face him. “I’ll finish up the front.”
Even though Satine was wearing comfortable, modest clothes, it was not hard to imagine the underlying shape of her body. Her chest was at his eye level as she leaned over him to cut the front. He forced his eyes closed.
Images began to flash in front of him: he was running through Coruscant with a hooded Satine, holding her hand and deflecting blaster bolts. An explosion, a cave, a hidden factory, Satine at his side with a blaster, saving him from certain death. Satine in his arms, bleeding out, feebly reaching up to push his fringe out of his face as she whispered her love. Satine with one arm around him and another around a little boy who looked like her but with his coloring, a little girl who looked just like him squirming just out of reach. He reaches for her, a plain band of gold glinting on his finger. Satine lying in bed next to him, her blue eyes clouded with cataracts but still lighting up her wrinkled face with love and contentment. He brushes a strand of white hair out of her face with a wrinkled hand and squeezes her hand as she murmurs “I’ll be waiting for you,” closing her eyes for the last time. He murmurs “Wait for me,” and closes his eyes for the last time as well, just minutes later. Satine was clearly bound to him somehow.
He knew he had a Force-bond with his master, and that he will form similar bonds with any padawans he takes in the future, but is it possible to have a bond with a non-Force-sensitive? Satine makes him feel like he has never felt before. The tingling when she touches him is similar to what he felt when Siri tapped him on the shoulder in the Archives, but this is much more intense. How could this be happening to him? This was most inconvenient and decidedly against the rules, not fair at all. Satine is rude, self-important, has a mean streak when she gets on her high horse about pacifism, annoying, ungrateful, but also has a beautifully ardent soul and strong sense of justice that matches his own, is often kind to him in spite of herself, a kindred spirit in the body of a beautiful young woman. That was the worst part.
“There. All done. You can stop scowling now. If you keep making that face it’ll stay that way. Smile, cultivate laugh lines over a long and happy life. I hope you like the haircut. I probably should have had you drape your cloak around your shoulders or take off your tunic first, the cut hairs will be getting everywhere and it’s going to itch. I’m sorry about that.”
He stared at her. That was the first time she had ever apologized to him for anything. Obi-Wan ran a hand over the top of his head. Sure enough she had cut his hair way too short, to less than a centimeter by his estimation, but he didn’t mind, really. It would last longer this way—or maybe not. If she offered again, he would probably take her up on it. If only she would let him rest his head on her lap and stroke his hair. He rubbed his head, sending cut hairs flying everywhere, including inside his tunic. He made a face at the itchiness. As much as the prospect would normally horrify him of taking off his tunic in front of her or any girl except Bant, who was practically his sister anyway, the itching won out and Obi-Wan soon sat in the dusky forest with his upper body exposed.
Satine brushed her fingers over his shoulders and back, trying to ignore the jolts of electricity that ran from her fingertips up her arm and all through her body, making her feel strangely warm all over. She brought her face closer, trying to see the little hairs in the fading light. His body was certainly covered in scars. It was clear that he was still growing, but he was also more muscular than he looked, albeit of a wiry build. Strong arms that could keep her from falling, a firm shoulder to rest her head on, a pale back for her to cover in bacta, a pale neck for her to cover in love bites—wait, what was she thinking?
He felt her hot breath on the nape of his neck as she blew away the cut hairs. Yes, bring those lips closer, closer, closer until they touched his skin in a kiss—no, he dare not. She dare not. They had their duties. He closed his eyes and shivered, hoping she would assume that he was cold without his tunic. He concentrated on an old lullaby he had learned in the crèche to center himself.
Satine stopped in her tracks. Obi-Wan was humming something to himself, probably not even aware that it was audible, but what a voice he had. Fighting prowess was a given as a Mandalorian, for both men and women, but a velvety, warm, clear tenor singing voice was prized in a man. Obi-Wan had the perfect voice. She could imagine him singing the traditional courtship songs, earning her kiss, and possibly more. Satine Kryze! What are you thinking! She shook her head.
“Here’s your tunic. I shook it out for you.” He opened his eyes when she addressed him. Satine was no Jedi, but thanks to her early childhood training as a warrior she could read people. There was a mixture of fear, confusion, and desire in his eyes, a cocktail of emotion that matched her own feelings. If they weren’t a duchess and a Jedi but just a teenage girl and boy, they could work out their differences or make peace with them, build a life together, maybe raise a family. Satine realized with a start that she had known all along that she felt this way about him.
Obi-Wan noted the suppressed longing in Satine’s eyes as he put his tunic back on, hoping that she had not noticed the bulge in his crotch. Her touch on his bare skin was more stimulating than it should be. “Thank you.” He stood up and brushed off the hairs from his trousers.
“There you are. I was beginning to wonder if Obi-Wan was going to have any hair left.” Qui-Gon found them and smiled. “I see you didn’t leave him much. Come on, help me set up the tent before it gets too dark.”
Obi-Wan met Satine’s gaze and smirked at her as he followed Qui-Gon, looking over his shoulder to make sure she was still following. Satine would normally frown in response to that smirk, but tonight she smirked right back. She was rewarded by hearing him singing softly to himself as he joined Qui-Gon in erecting the tent poles. It was a hard life being on the run trying to evade people who wanted her dead, but hearing one Obi-Wan Kenobi singing in the pine forest in the evening just about made it worthwhile. Satine smiled in spite of herself. They would be back to arguments and awkward silences tomorrow, but for tonight she could dream.