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When Obi-Wan left Coruscant in a hurry, completely broken and exhausted, he didn't know where to go or what to do. Having lost everything he could call his own, and left alone in the boundless space, he thought that he could find peace in a remote corner of the Galaxy, where neither the ghosts of the Force nor the army of the emperor would find him. But even after a long time spent on Tatooine all alone, he still couldn’t ease his mind.
Before, he had goals that needed to be fulfilled, dreams that he wanted to realise, and close people who could support him. All he had now was a void filled with sand and the howling winds of the Tatooine desert.
He couldn’t do nothing and just wait for the end of his days. But what could he do?
On the instinct for self-preservation, he, like a criminal, laid low on Tatooine, hiding from the omnipresent Empire. He didn't want to be found; although he didn’t know why he continued to prolong his life, he continued to hide.
Day gave way to night, two suns rose and fell in the sky; during the day Obi-Wan practised his lightsaber, drenching in sweat; at night he slept on the cooled sands. Routine actions led to routine thoughts — what could he do? What should he do? What was all this for? The lightsaber vibrated, tightly clutched in his palm, the burning blade cutting through the hot air.
Even in the most desperate moments, he believed that sooner or later everything would work out, but the war took everything from him, even his last hope.
When he saw that the greatest deception had the face of a man he sincerely trusted, how could he find faith again?
He gave this man everything he had, and in return received only a brief moment of love, the cruellest of wars and a miserable existence in the deserts.
Day gave way to night, two moons rose and fell in the black sky.
Routine actions put his thoughts in order, and instead of punishing himself, Obi-Wan began to form a new goal — he must do something.
He must take revenge.
Revenge was the main sin that the Jedi Order condemned in the first place — but neither the Jedi nor the Order remained. And perhaps revenge was the wrong definition of what Obi-Wan began to seriously think about and what he began to plan. This could be called righteous punishment, redemption — he wanted to rid the world of the root of evil, which he himself so blindly didn’t notice until the last moment.
He continued to train with the saber and to meditate. Having found a new goal for himself, he also gained determination. He knew what he had to do, and now he was thinking about how he could put his plan in action.
Three years later, the twin suns set below the horizon for Obi-Wan for the last time, the desert cooled, and the winds calmed down. The strange hermit in brown robes, who trained with a lightsaber and slept on the sands, had left Tatooine forever. He went into the depths of space, where the Force had led him, to a place he forgot but remembered as soon as he approached it.
Soaring in the middle of the black space, a small monolith seemed lifeless, but behind the unremarkable structure was a powerful concentration of the Force. As soon as the small shuttle approached the monolith, Obi-Wan remembered all that was connected to it — but the memories didn’t bring neither pain nor relief. He only felt as if the last piece of the big picture fell into place — and then he sent the coordinates of his location on all radio frequencies. If the forces of the Empire were really looking for him, then someone would definitely catch and decipher his signal.
Obi-Wan set the shuttle straight to the monolith, and it opened up to him in a blinding white light, revealing a hidden world. As soon as he crossed the invisible border, the light was gone, and with it the sense of time was gone, too.
Everything around was grey and monotonous. When Obi-Wan had been here last time, the seasons had gone by faster than they should have, and light and dark clashed in an endless loop. Now this little hidden planet was completely dead. It lost all colours, dead black trees sticking out of the grey petrified earth, their sharp branches sticking into the even colourless sky. Nothing moved or made any sound - it was a crazy, empty place.
But as soon as Obi-Wan got out of the shuttle, the ground under his feet was instantly covered with green grass, and where he walked, flowers appeared. The sky cleared a little, and a light breeze blew. Obi-Wan took a deep breath and breathed out sharply — the Force accepted him as a new inhabitant of Mortis, he had only to wait for the one who he couldn’t kill last time.
Time flowed differently here than in the outer galaxy, and Obi-Wan didn’t know how much time he had spent waiting. Like on Tatooine, he continued to train and meditate, only on Mortis he didn’t feel tired, and he didn’t need to sleep or eat. The Force itself nourished him, and he became one with it as much as it was possible, given the limitations of his physical body.
Pretty soon — if one could use such a word on Mortis — he sensed in the Force his enemy approaching. Obi-Wan returned to where he had left his own shuttle. Now there were two ships, and next to them stood a man in a black robe with a long hood hiding his face.
“I sent spies after spies, but they all said that the signal from your ship seemed to have disappeared into the void. Then I thought it was some kind of Force trick — and I was right”, said the man in the hood.
"I knew this place wouldn't open to those who weren't Force-sensitive," Obi-Wan replied. It was the first thing he had said in years, but his voice didn't waver. “And it was important to me that you come here in person.”
The man in black chuckled and stepped forward. Under his feet, the earth turned to stone again, and the plants died.
“What an interesting place…” the hooded man remarked, looking around. Then he turned back to Obi-Wan, "So why did you lure me here?"
Obi-Wan said nothing to that. He took out his lightsaber and activated it.
"You can't beat me, Obi-Wan," the hooded man said, and drew his own crimson blade.
Obi-Wan attacked first.
Day and night were changing rapidly, spring gave way to autumn, and time itself swam back and forth. Obi-Wan noticed how the world around him changed and how they themselves changed, as if time didn’t know which way it should go — Obi-Wan became a young Padawan with a long braid, then again turned into an old man, tormented by the Tatooine deserts. His opponent also changed, his grey hair and terrible wrinkles disappeared, he again turned into his former self.
Three days and three nights passed, but no one was going to give up. Then days became weeks, then months and years. The duelists didn’t need rest, and the goal of each was only one thing — to defeat the other and emerge from the fight as the only winner.
A similar situation happened on Coruscant a few years (or maybe a few days?) ago, when Obi-Wan, in a fit of desperation, fought Palpatine in the Senate building. He was sure that he would die, but for some reason the self-proclaimed emperor didn’t finish him off, and it took Obi-Wan long meditations to understand why.
They were too attached to each other. Despite the war and the difference in their positions, despite the opposite goals and views and incompatible philosophies, they could never kill each other. Obi-Wan knew this and was prepared for it — still, he had to isolate the world from the Sith.
"You can't beat me, Obi-Wan!" Sheev shouted viciously, his voice echoing through the hills and mountains of Mortis.
"Just like you can't beat me," Obi-Wan replied.
And then something fundamentally clicked in the Force, and both of them felt it. Mortis, regaining the balance between Darkness and Light, began to close, plunging into the very matter of the Force, inaccessible to mere mortals. Before the bubble finally closed, Palpatine attempted to escape and go back to the outside world, but Obi-Wan stopped him from leaving. They engaged in a deadly battle until powerful currents of the Force completely engulfed this small, mysterious planet, locking the last Sith and the last Jedi to fight each other for eternity.