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It was dark, inside the Dark Forest.
Maybe Obi-Wan shouldn’t have been surprised, but for some reason he’d thought the name might have been meant in a metaphorical way, to warn off travelers or some such nonsense.
He hadn’t actually expected to have difficulty seeing.
There were humongous trees, trees in dark greys and browns, so deep they almost seemed black stretching up twenty men tall, locking away all but the most determined beams of sunlight as the twisting trees covered the sky. The ground itself was mostly flat, but rough and rocky, with few plants besides the occasional shrub or fern, and ever-present vines that creeped over and under and between the tree trunks, making it difficult to see the next section of your path, let alone where you’ve already wandered.
“So what, precisely, does a ‘measure of courage’ look like?”
At least, if Obi-Wan had to be stumbling cluelessly through unfamiliar woods, he wasn’t doing it alone. He had Anakin, and now he had Feemor. Obi-Wan still hadn’t quite adjusted to having a brother, or that brother currently being a pegasus of all things due to a warlock’s curse, but Feemor had been delightful company so far, and Obi-Wan looked forwards to learning more about him if they managed to build the wand of light and change him back. When they built the wand of light, it’s not like they had any other options, after all.
“I’m not quite sure, but we should know it when we see it; fairytale magic should be fairly distinctive, right?”
“Right,” Feemor agreed.
They wandered the forest for several minutes, with scarcely a change to be found, just vines, trees, shadows, and rocks.
“Keep a sharp lookout, we can’t miss anything.”
“What? And here I was thinking this was just a casual stroll we’ve found ourselves on, little brother!” said Feemor.
Obi-Wan sighed. “My apologies, I know you’re looking just as much as I am.”
It was unfortunate, for them, that they were both so determined to find a measure of courage that they quite forgot to pay any attention to the polar bear cub on Feemor’s back.
Anakin launched himself towards the ground, ignoring Obi-Wan’s alarmed yelp and scampering through the trees after something only he could see, while Obi-Wan raced after him with Feemor. They caught up with Anakin just as he started to slow down, and Obi-Wan had already bent over to pick up the rambunctious cub when he noticed the ropes on the ground.
“Anakin wait!”
But Anakin did not listen, and with his next step all three of them were hoisted high into the air, in a pair of hanging net traps sprung by his fumbling paws.
Obi-Wan tried to reach his boot knife, but the boot that had his knife had gotten tangled in the ropes as they were lifted and was currently stuck near the top of net, leaving him struggling quite uncomfortably beneath it in his efforts to break free.
“Need a little help there, your highness?”
Obi-Wan twisted around inside the net.
Below him, even though just minutes before Obi-Wan would have sworn there wasn’t anybody else for miles, stood a man. He blended into the forest much more easily than Obi-Wan or Feemor had, with his lengthy black sleeves, and black trousers tucked into dark boots. He appeared to be wearing a half set of hunting armor as well, with grey leather acting as an overtunic and wrapping protectively around both forearms. A sword hung from his belt, and the thoughtlessly comfortable way it rested against his side suggested he knew how to use it. He had recognized Obi-Wan, and was clearly friendly enough from his greeting, which would probably be of use in escaping the blasted nets if he genuinely meant well.
He also, to speak most blatantly, caught Obi-Wan’s eye for another reason entirely.
Shortly trimmed dark curls drew attention to a handsome face, smirking up at him with an awfully intriguing scar framing one of the sharp copper eyes holding his gaze. Obi-Wan had never longed more for a sketchbook in his life, he wanted to trace out the slope of his cheeks, sketch the roundness of his jaw, wanted to draw something to keep this stranger in his thoughts when this brief meeting had passed. Speaking of his life, though-
“Yes, if you’re offering.”
The man scoffed. “Like I would ask if I weren’t. Or do people normally gather at your feet to make a mockery of you, Prince Kenobi?”
The man bowed with great exaggeration and Feemor, unhelpful, horrible brother that he was, unsubtly choked on a laugh.
Their newest companion sighed at that and drew his sword, heading over to the tree holding the anchoring rope of the trap.
"Well usually, there isn’t opportunity for anyone to gather at my feet seeing as my feet are usually planted on the ground. You know, what with there not being unexpected traps blanketing the castle grounds to catch innocent travelers.” (This of course, was a little bit of an untruth considering how much time Obi-Wan spent flying through the air when skating, or climbing the castle walls with Quinlan, but he preferred to think of it as more of a…unique perspective of things than an outright lie.)
“Ah, but what a pity you are not, in fact, at your castle!” Obi-Wan attempted to respond, but was interrupted by the man slicing through the anchor with his sword, using his other hand to pull at the rope as it came loose to slow down Obi-Wan’s and Feemor’s sudden plummet back to the ground. Considering it was just the one hand versus the combined weight of Obi-Wan, a winged horse, and a small polar bear, Obi-Wan couldn't say he noticed much of a difference, but the effort was appreciated all the same.
“So why are you here, then? Only fools come to the dark forest.”
Rude. “Ah but who is more foolish? The fool, or the fool that bows to him?”
Feemor interrupted, gracefully stepping forwards with a surprising amount of dignity considering the tiny polar bear now climbing onto his back. “What my little brother means to say, is ‘thank you very much for your help,’”
“Brother? The bear or the prince?” The woodsman looked taken aback for the first time in their conversation, as though he was used to finding random royalty and their flying steeds hanging from the trees, but it was the horse's politeness that surprised him.
Now it was Obi-wan’s turn to sigh. “He means me,” he said. “This is Feemor, my older brother,” Feemor dipped his head, “my bear cub, Anakin,” Anakin froze from where he had tumbled off of Feemor’s back and seemed to be trying to sneak up on their rescuer, “and you seemed to recognize me but still, Prince Obi-Wan Kenobi, pleased to meet you.” Obi-Wan bowed.
“Cody,” the man replied. He gave a short whistle and a lovely brown horse came trotting through the trees to stand next to him. “And this is Puddle.”
Obi-Wan started to extend his hand to make it a proper greeting, only to finally notice what Anakin was up to. Unfortunately for him, so did Cody.
“Anakin no-”
“Hey! Stop that!” Cody stepped back away from little grasping paws while Obi-Wan grabbed his misbehaving cub and dropped him back on Feemor, despite Anakin’s yowled protests
.
Obi-Wan flushed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “I’m so terribly sorry, he’s still getting used to meeting new people, I promise, he doesn’t mean any harm.”
“Was he trying to eat my boots? I thought that was behavior limited to hounds?”
“Ah. Well. Not exactly?" Obi-Wan rubbed the back of his neck. "If there’s any damages I’m sure we can negotiate a proper fee to cover the repairs.”
Cody's unimpressed expression demanded a better explanation from him, but it's not like Obi-Wan had trained Anakin to act in such a way, he came like that!
“Anakin has a little bit of a fondness for shiny objects, let’s say, and the fastenings on your boots do seem like you’ve taken some care with them.”
“Your polar bear is some kind of magpie? For metal. And tried to gnaw my boots off my feet because of this.”
“Oh not your boots, just the buckles! You could take it as a compliment?” Obi-Wan smiled winningly at his rescuer, hoping he wouldn’t need to rescue Anakin from him if this didn’t go over well. Anakin, whom Obi-Wan needed to look particularly angelic just then, promptly sneezed at them and fell off of Feemor’s back. Lovely.
Cody merely laughed, shaking his head disbelievingly and adjusting the saddle straps on his horse. “You’re really something else, you know that, your highness?”
He prepared to swing himself up, and of course, just as Obi-Wan relaxed and prepared to write off this entire incident as a minor, amusing story on his quest to save his people, that was the moment everything truly went to hell.
In a horrifying moment of déjà vu, something slammed into the back of Obi-Wan’s ankles and he fell, forwards this time, bumping his face against the edges of Cody’s leather tunic when Cody lunged to catch him. At the same time, there was a rapid scrambling of paws against the dirt before a thunk! and the sounds of-
Anakin slipping away in some sort of hidden wooden slide? Just what sort of forest was this?
“What the kark?” Obi-Wan shoved himself upright, absentmindedly muttering his thanks as he staggered over to peer down the hole of Anakin’s latest disaster.
The humor from earlier had faded from Cody’s demeanor as he walked closer and stiffly pulled Obi-Wan further from the edge. “That’s one of Grievous’ traps, like the one I freed you from though a bit more sophisticated.”
“Grievous?” Obi-Wan looked to Feemor but he just shook his head in mutual confusion.
Cody tilted his head forwards, waving a hand in disbelief. “Grievous? The dark alchemist? Collector of Souls, lost his sanity in a bet for knowledge, not sure if he’s actually human or some sort of sentient-consuming, science-obsessed, overgrown insect? None of that sounds familiar?”
“Should it?”
Obi-Wan blinked at him, and Cody stared back blankly for half a second before he started pacing back and forth, muttering incoherently under his breathe and occasionally swearing, if Obi-Wan wasn’t mistaken. Obi-Wan took advantage of this to step back over to the wooden shoot Anakin had disappeared down.
“What is the trap for, anyway?”
“What?”
“The slide, you said it belonged to an alchemist? What could he possibly want with a polar bear?”
Cody paused, before shaking himself a little and resuming his pacing. The poor man was likely to work himself into some form of mental breakdown if he was always this tightly strung, not that that was any of Obi-Wan’s business. “Experiments, presumably. The slides all end at his cabin, and most of the stories I’ve heard seem to involve him twisting or changing living creatures somehow. Don’t know that he’s all that picky about what type of creature he gets.”
Obi-Wan frowned, leaning reassuringly against Feemor as he thought things through. Obi-Wan might not have known Anakin for very long yet, but he was such an endearing, friendly, little thing, certainly not suited for such untold suffering as Cody implied. There was nothing else for it, then. Reaching out, Obi-Wan lightly grasped Cody’s leather vambrace to bring him to a halt.
“What do you think it would take to get Anakin away from Grievous?”
Cody went stiff before he shook Obi-Wan's hand off, backing away with a frown.
“No.”
“That wasn’t exactly a yes or no question, darling.” But Cody just shook his head.
“Absolutely not, your highness.” He looked at Feemor. “Is he always like this?” Feemor, the traitor, shrugged.
“You would just abandon a poor, innocent, little cub to such a fate?”
Cody arched an eyebrow at him, the wry expression unfairly charming on such an obstinate man.
“In the entire five minutes I’ve had the pleasure of your acquaintance, that bear has gotten you trapped helplessly in a dangerous forest, tried to steal the buckles on my boots, tripped you, sneezed on your horse, and managed to launch himself down a one-way shoot into the home of an angry, magic-crafting lunatic.” And it’s not like Obi-Wan could deny any of that, but still.
“So he’s a little bit of a trouble finder, I’m not just going to leave Anakin behind, though!”
“Perhaps you can go negotiate with the crazy alchemist instead, then, see how that turns out for you.”
“Well, where is the cabin?”
“What?”
“The alchemist's home. I’ll trade you my bracelet for the location."
“Oh, I’m sorry, perhaps you didn’t understand;” Cody stepped closer, close enough for Obi-Wan to start wondering if those little flecks of gold in Cody’s eyes were actually there, or merely an effect of one of the few sunbeams sneaking its way through the treetops far above them. “Your. pet. is. gone. I’m sorry, truly I am, but Grievous is not someone to be challenged, and certainly not by a man who couldn’t last even two hours in this forest unsupervised. So no, I’m not going to kill myself trying to rescue a clumsy fluffball, and no, I’m not telling you where to find his cabin; I’ve got enough on my conscious without adding the life of some fussy little princeling to it.”
With that most flattering description said, Cody ran his eyes up and down Obi-Wan’s figure dismissively, before turning away and beginning to walk. He obviously hadn’t dealt with a determined Obi-Wan before, if he thought that was the end of things.
“It’s hardly going to lighten your conscience, then, when I get struck down by some sort of beast as I wander the forest alone, crying and calling for Anakin.”
Cody froze. Hook.
“After all, who knows what evils might take advantage of a ‘fussy little princeling's’ distress, especially one who’s mind is now occupied with imagining all the awful things a mad alchemist could be doing to a dear companion. But I’m sure that’s no concern of yours, of course.”
His shoulders drew up slightly towards his ears. Line.
“Or maybe I’ll find another woodsman to guide me there! I mean, my bracelet is worth a fair bit, I’m sure I can find someone to take me up on my offer.”
Obi-Wan hid a smirk as Cody turned back around. Sinker.
“If I take you there, I will not help you past the front gate. I have my own chores to complete before I throw my life away on a fool’s errand, so whatever happens at that house is between you and Grievous.”
“But of course, my dear!” Obi-Wan closed the difference between them this time, smiling cheerfully at Cody as he slid the back of a hand past Cody’s ribs to link their arms together.
“Where do we start?”
~~~
Dark forests, as it turned out, were rather easy to travel once you got past the pervading gloom, and the echoing clatters and rustles that came from unseen creatures, and the awfully appealing little twists and turns of the shadowy woods that seemed to hint that a better, more maintained path was just around the corner there, why not come closer?
Dark forests, as it turned out, were much easier to travel when with Cody.
He walked among the enormous trees as though he belonged there, stepping confidently past the rather alarming scratches slashed across tree trunks, using his sword to lift low-hanging vines for Feemor, steadying Obi-Wan when he stumbled over something or other in the dismal lighting. Within an hour of striking their agreement (and it was an agreement, much as Cody seemed to enjoy muttering about extortion and the corrupt values of the day’s nobility), they arrived at the edges of a small clearing surrounding the strangest stone dwelling Obi-Wan had ever seen.
Well, clearing might not be exactly the right word, for all that there weren’t any trees surrounding the little house in the center that didn’t mean the space was empty. There were chaotically spiraling wooden slides stretching towards and into the cabin (like the gigantic web of a some poor, directionally-challenged spider), and a much denser assortment of ferns and brambles underfoot than the rest of the forest they’d seen thus far. The alchemist's house itself looked rather like what Obi-Wan had imagined fae cottages to look like during his lessons as a child, if the fae in question also had a penchant for scribbling strange symbols and illegible numeric values over everything it could get its hands on. The writing (carvings? Obi-Wan wondered if that mattered, when it came to such things, he’d never met an alchemist before) covered the entire exterior, from the otherwise unpainted wooden door, to the curving stonework of the walls, to even the little round windows peeping on either side of the door like eyes.
And right between them, dangling a shiny yellow cord from just above the door, was a silver entry bell.
“Are you satisfied now, your highness?” Cody crossed his arms and leaned against a tree, raising a single eyebrow at him with an exasperated sort of tiredness.
“Hm? Oh! Your payment, yes, quite satisfied, thank you.” Obi-Wan shook himself and unclasped his bracelet, a pretty little trinket Tahl had given him once after growing tired of it herself. Obi-Wan wasn’t particularly attached to it, and the silver-gold alloy of the stone settings would fetch Cody quite a nice price when melted down, even if the turquoise itself wasn’t overly expensive. Obi-Wan held it out to Cody.
“Seriously? No, that wasn’t what I-”
Obi-Wan jangled the bracelet in front of him.
The satisfying clanking noises only lasted for a moment before Cody snatched the bracelet from him with breathtaking speed.
"Were you actually raised in a barn? Or are little princelings not taught their manners like the rest of us?”
Obi-Wan sniffed. “No need to get huffy, I just wanted to make sure you were paid before I rescued Anakin. There is a chance I don’t come back out, after all.” He turned to Feemor. “If I’ve not returned within the hour, assume I’m dead and fly back home.”
Feemor bristled and started to protest, but Obi-Wan interrupted. “Not that I don’t believe you would be of great assistance,” he said. “But with what Cody said about the sort of things Grievous finds interesting, taking a flying, talking horse inside his home to try and convince him how utterly boring and pointless it might be to experiment on a polar bear doesn’t seem like the wisest of decisions we could make. I would hate for you to get cursed even more than you already are, especially for something that was my idea in the first place.”
Obi-Wan smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of Feemor’s head before stepping away.
“But have no fear! You’ll see I can be quite persuasive when I put my mind to it.”
Ignoring the snort he got in reply as he couldn't tell if it was from Feemor or Cody, Obi-Wan stepped away from the tree line and made his way across the clearing, forcing his way through clinging plants and ducking beneath the occasion wooden slide. He reached the front door, and let himself take just one deep, slow breath to steady his nerves before grabbing the yellow rope and ringing Grievous’ entry bell.
It made a much lighter noise than he would have expected for all of Cody's hullabaloo, rather like that he might hear upon entering a shop when joining Quinlan for his chores in town.
He waited one moment, then another. Obi-Wan was just about to tug the rope a second time when the door was flung open before him, with a very, very tall character standing hunched over in the entryway. The person was the height of a man and a half, and would seem humanoid enough beyond this were it not for the two additional limbs protruding from his torso. He had a broad chest but was otherwise very thin, and covered almost entirely with metallic looking white armor, including a mask of some kind. (Unless his face was just naturally like that. Obi-Wan supposed it wouldn’t be fair to judge considering the offense some of the townsfolk immediately take to his own unusual hair.) Obi-Wan beamed his most charming smile at the being.
“Hello there! Are you, by any chance, the great alchemist Grievous?”
“I am! And who might you be, to dare disturb my studies?”
Obi-Wan bowed shallowly. “I am Prince Obi-Wan Kenobi. I’ve heard talk of your studies, and have come to negotiate a request of you, should you prove to be capable of it, of course.”
Grievous somehow pulled himself even taller, looking down at Obi-Wan with no little affront. “Capable? I am so more than capable of any such request you could dream up, little prince, capable of more than can be found in this world or any other! Tell me, what is this request of yours, if only so I may laugh at your feeble-mindedness.”
“Oh but I’ve heard such a thing is quite impossible, you know. It’s a bit a lengthy explanation though, might we go inside? That is, of course, if you’re interested in hearing out my offer…”
Without another word being spoken Obi-Wan found himself summarily dragged inside the house and the door slammed shut. It didn’t seem to have any locks, merely more of the indecipherable scribbles as the outside of the house. Grievous noticed him looking and laughed, a wheezy, almost choking occurrence that made Obi-Wan seriously consider the likelihood of catching some horrible illness before he managed to leave with Anakin.
“If even the door you deigned to knock on can impress you, little prince, I doubt you’ve brought me any matter worth my consideration.”
The inside of the cabin seemed to be mainly one enormous room, with a large table to the right with magnifying equipment and several books atop it, and the back wall almost entirely covered with shelves of bottled liquids and vials of powders, sealed jars of animal parts and dried plants. The left half of the room was rather empty, but for a hole about the depth of a man that spanned the length of the wall and the openings for the slides above it. It was in this hole, making disgruntled little yowls and grumbles, that Obi-Wan found Anakin.
Now the only problem was getting them both out of the alchemist's house.
Grievous sat Obi-Wan on top of the desk, sitting in the chair himself and folding his second set of arms in front of him. He used the other pair to gesture towards Obi-Wan, clearly impatient to hear of his grand request.
Obi-Wan hesitated, and shot Grievous an overtly dubious look. “Not that I’m doubting you, my good sir, or any of you deeds, but this is quite the personal matter for the royal family, and our very own alchemist is renown for doing some of the most marvelous deeds. So before we begin, even if I myself have heard grand tales of your prowess, I will need to see some proof of your scientific skill before I reveal my purpose here.”
Grievous again wheezed out his creaky laugh.
“Tell me, Prince Kenobi, what has your little court magician done that is so impressive. Use a couple of equations to speed up the growth of your mother’s gardens? Thrown together an antidote to relieve your party goers of wine-sickness?”
Now Obi-Wan’s family did not have an alchemist in their employ. What they did have, however, were some rather excellent tutors, and as Qui-Gon’s favorite method of keeping him inside the castle was assigning him yet more subjects to learn, Obi-Wan himself was rather more versed in mathematics than the average prince might find himself. So while Obi-Wan might not be able to understand the reasoning behind the scribbles everywhere, he could certainly identify the symbols themselves. And twisting the information he did have to his advantage had always been a special skill of his.
““Well,” Obi-Wan mentioned conversationally, "recently he’s been very interested in measuring the sensitivity of the end results of-” Obi-Wan cut himself off. “Oh I’m dreadfully sorry, do you happen to know what calculus is? It’s the part of math with all the-”
“None can match me in the mathematical and metaphysical arts!” Grievous snarled.
“Right,” said Obi-Wan. “Of course, but Zam can calculate the differential equations in his head, when necessary, and I see rather a lot of writing here, everywhere.” (and if Obi-Wan’s very much non-magical tutor was actually a gentle, sassy man by the name of Plo, there was no need to send Grievous knocking at his door by using his real name for this.)
“Give me an equation and I will solve it for you, then!”
“What particular solution occurs when the derivative of a codomain, divided by the derivative of its domain, is equal to the squared power of the domain with the initial condition of both the domain and its codomain valuing zero?”
Obi-Wan, who could most assuredly not solve differential equations in his head, desperately hoped that that was, in fact, an actual, solvable, differential equation and not him misremembering his vocabulary lessons at a truly inopportune moment.
Grievous leapt to his feet. “You think that a challenge! When the codomain equals one third of the domain’s third power! Tell me, Prince Kenobi, does this satisfy you?”
Obi-Wan tilted his head concedingly towards him, ignoring the fact that he didn’t actually know if that was correct or not. Best to move on.
“Ah, yes, how impressive! But,” Obi-Wan smiled blandly, “Zam of course, can do such things without the use of two of his senses. I once saw him calculate the integral of a mountain while blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back so he could start transmuting the coal into gold!”
“Pah! Gold-seeking, the lowest of the low of our kind!” Grievous marched over to his shelves and pulled out some thickly woven rope and a black silk scarf, handing the rope to Obi-Wan and wrapping the scarf around his head over his eyes. “Come, little prince, tie my hands behind me so I can prove to you how simplistic the calculations you so praise your beloved Zam for are!”
Obi-Wan pushed himself off of the desk and stood behind Grievous, quickly wrapping and securing the cord as tightly as possible around all four wrists. That done, Obi-Wan silently removed his boots and slid across the floor over the the hole where Anakin was trapped. Removing his belt, Obi-Wan quickly fastened it around one of his boots and lowered it into the pit next to Anakin, who perked up at seeing Obi-Wan’s face peering over the edge.
Ignoring Grievous’ distracted muttering behind him, Obi-Wan dangled the boot next to polar bear cub, taking one hand off to wave at Anakin that he should grab onto the boot so Obi-Wan could pull him out. Anakin immediately honed in on Obi-Wan’s silver belt buckle, clinging to the boot with such determination he almost dragged Obi-Wan in the pit instead of Obi-Wan dragging Anakin out of it.
“And what do you say about that, Prince Kenobi! Cleverer than your Zam by leagues!” Fortunately, Grievous hadn’t yet noticed anything amiss, and Obi-Wan quickly slid back across the floor in his socks so he was next to the desk again, holding up a finger for Anakin to be quiet as he put his boots back on and refastened his belt.
“Hmm, his equal, perhaps. But there’s one feat I’ve heard Zam say only the most talented of alchemists could achieve, impossible even for him to complete!”
“Yesss, tell me of this task, let me feast upon Zam’s humiliated despair when I so easily complete it!!”
Well. Seeing as ‘Zam’ was an entirely made up person of Obi-Wan’s own creation, a person Grievous had had no knowledge of even thirty minutes before, that seemed just a little bit of an extreme reaction. Perhaps Cody was right about Grievous’ sanity.
“Any alchemist can turn something living into something lifeless, of course. But it takes a true master of the arts to transmute something barren into something that grows. Like, say, stone walls into shrubbery?”
Obi-Wan, unfortunately, was out of fancy mathematics to talk about. He still spoke frequently with Master Plo, but their topics nowadays tended more towards the adventures of the townsfolks’ children and less towards hypothetical values and calculations.
So while he spoke to Grievous about this next, final task, Obi-Wan carefully removed a large bottle of an unfamiliar liquid from the shelves beside them. He eased the cork open and slowly, carefully spilled the oily substance on the floor around Grievous, especially on floor closest to Obi-Wan. Acting quickly now, Obi-Wan set down the bottle, picked up Anakin, and sprinted for the door.
Grievous, upon hearing the door burst open, came to the conclusion that he’d been tricked and gave chase, but metallic armor and a slick floor don’t mix very well on a good day, let alone when you’ve just been fooled by an unarmed man two feet shorter than you and his pet bear cub.
Obi-Wan, blatantly ignoring the bloodthirsty wheezing and calls of his name from behind him, not stopping in his run until he made it back across the clearing and reunited with Feemor among the trees once more.
Who was waiting with Cody?
“Hello! Just like I said, nothing to worry about, just one polar bear safe and soun- Anakin.” Obi-Wan set Anakin on Feemor’s back and gave him the most disappointed expression he could muster. Anakin, gleefully holding the shiny yellow cord that Obi-Wan had last seen hanging form Grievous’ entry bell, did not seem repentant for turning back to his thieving ways while Obi-Wan was still rescuing him from the consequences of his earlier attempts.
Cody, who had merely nodded in relief at Obi-Wan’s return, burst out laughing.
And oh, maybe Obi-Wan wasn’t so mad at Anakin after all because Cody’s laugh could outdo the song of any bird. It was especially pretty, it wasn’t particularly deep or melodic but it was bright, the sort of warmth that invites you to share in a joke even if you don’t understand the jest.
“Oh go easy on him, maybe he wants a little something to remember your adventure by.” Cody glanced up and down Obi-Wan with a smile. “It’s not every pet that has a prince brave enough to challenge a madman for their safety.”
“Of course!” Feemor shoved his head into Obi-Wan’s arm to get his attention away from Cody’s eyes. “Obi-Wan, hold up the bell rope, next to your head.”
Obi-Wan furrowed his eyebrows at him but gently wrestled the yellow cord out of Anakin’s grasp to do so. The rope just barely touched the ground, and Feemor let out a delighted gasp.
“It’s your exact height!”
Obi-Wan glanced over at Cody, who saw him looking and somehow managed to convey hey, that’s your talking horse brother, how should I know what’s going on? with nothing but his expression and the shift of his shoulders.
“Okay, and?”
Feemor walked closer tossing his head towards the rope. “And, that means it’s your measure. As in, the exact length of a person courageous enough to go knocking at the door of someone incredibly dangerous to save a friend? That certainly sounds like a ‘measure of courage’ to me!”
As though taking cue from Feemor’s words, golden sparks started swirling their way up from the bottom of the ribbon, briefly blinding Obi-Wan (and Cody, if the quiet swear was anything to go by). When the afterimage cleared from his eyes, Obi-Wan found that he was left holding not a yellow rope, but a tall metal staff in the same color, intricately designed with thin curls of wire patterning the staff and a wide, indented top, presumably to add the other components to later.
Needless to say, Obi-Wan was not letting Anakin get his little paws back on it, no matter how much it shined.
“Now we just need the next two parts! What’s next?” Obi-Wan could’ve cried, he was so relieved. That was one impossible wand part collected, and if “a measure of courage” was real then the others must be too. He wouldn’t have to marry Sidious, he and Feemor could save their people without resorting to anything like that.
“'Breha said we needed ‘a gem of ice, lit by hope’s eternal flame’.”
“Hold up, just, hold up a second.” Cody cut through the air with his hands. He pointed to the staff. “That, just a minute ago, was the rope for Grievous’ doorbell.”
“Yes.” Obi-Wan nodded.
“But now it’s not, because you were brave enough to enter his house and now it’s a staff.”
“That is also correct.”
“Because it’s a ‘measure of courage’, as in, one of the three fairytale items you need to make a wand of light. Which the two of you believe in and are trying to make.”
“Also yes.”
Cody looked mildly flabbergasted, and Obi-Wan might’ve felt just a little bit bad for him. It’s not like Obi-Wan could see his own face, but he’s sure he hadn’t looked any better the night before when a warlock crashed the party Obi-Wan had crashed just to turn everybody to stone and introduce him to his previously unknown brother, the talking winged horse. He stepped closer to Cody, smiling encouragingly. Hopefully this wouldn’t lead to Cody having some kind of mental breakdown, Obi-Wan rather liked him.
“Here, would you like to hold it? Feels pretty real to me right now.”
Cody eyed the staff suspiciously, but still let Obi-Wan place it in his grasp. Cody twirled it, testing the heft of it like it was a weapon, before examining the detailed metal-work and gently handing it back to Obi-Wan, brushing their fingers together as he did so.
“See?”
Cody shook his head, but it seemed more in exasperation at his life than any real disbelief. “The quality of that staff is ridiculous, let alone the metal itself.
“What’s wrong with the metal?” Obi-Wan didn’t think measures or courage usually had flaws in them, but maybe he hadn’t quite been brave enough?
“There isn’t anything wrong with it, everything is exactly, perfectly done and that’s very, very, unusual for metalwork as detailed as that.” Cody said. He shook his head again, Obi-Wan did hope he didn’t give himself a sore neck doing that. “And I’ve worked with tins and irons, coppers, golds, and steels, I thought I’d worked every metal under the sun at this point!"
Obi-Wan waited a moment, but Cody didn’t say anything else, just staring at the staff with a mildly furrowed brow.
“But?”
"But I can’t identify whatever that thing is made of!” Cody started pacing in a tight formation, back and forth with his hands clasped behind him as he spoke. “It could be made with a gold alloy based on the coloring, but the sturdiness the metal means that the gold would need to be a significantly smaller percentage than the other metal.” Cody huffed. “Or metals, I suppose, can’t rule out it being more than one. But the weight is far lighter than it should be for any of the metals strong enough to get that coloring and that durability for something mixed with gold, and adding to many metals to the mixture increases the likelihood of neutralizing the qualities you want from the metals instead of combining them.” Cody’s hands hand given up their position at some point, and were now gesturing aimlessly in front of him with more and more energy as Cody rambled.
Obi-Wan couldn’t pull his eyes away.
“And! That’s not even talking about the top of it! It’s got a nice, evenly formed place to set a stone, or a carved figurehead or something on it but there are extra little bits of whatever metal it is lining it! It’s far to neat to be accidental, and normally that’s done with more malleable metals, or, or ones with the lowest melting points. But this! This isn’t malleable! And it certainly doesn’t carry like it has a low melting point either, so why is it so clearly designed to be used in a weld?”
Feemor nearly knocked Obi-Wan over with a bump to his side, but when Obi-Wan him questioningly all he did was smile smugly (and who knew horses were able to look smug) and look pointedly between Obi-Wan and Cody.
Obi-Wan’s face flushed and he darted a glance at the still pacing Cody, before looking back at Feemor and firmly shaking his head in denial. He didn’t even know this man! Sure, he was clever, kind enough to help a stranger in need yet sarcastic enough to get a good banter going with. There was no denying he was handsome, of course, and he had a lovely laugh and clearly no small amount of skill if the way he had handled the staff was to be believed, but. That didn’t mean Obi-Wan was attracted to Cody, and anyway, what did Feemor know about it! He’d just spent the last 16 years as a horse, clearly he was just out of practice reading human facial expressions. That was all.
Unfortunately, Obi-Wan had no way of explaining all of that in a concise yet silent manner, and Feemor’s increasingly smug face remained unconvinced. Even Anakin looked skeptical of him now!
“Cody,” Obi-Wan could only look on in horror as Feemor stepped forwards, “how do you know all of this?”
Cody froze mid-gesture at the interruption, but didn’t seem too all that upset about Feemor’s rudeness.
“Oh, I work in a smithy when there’s the work for it, made my own sword and quite a few others.”
Feemor’s smugness grew, and Obi-Wan couldn’t decide if he wanted to hide behind a tree, or try and shove Feemor behind a tree, but sadly he hadn’t opportunity to do either. “You know, there are several stories about how to find the pieces for a wand of light, but very little on how to put those pieces together once we’ve got them. Sounds like we could use a man of your abilities, don’t you agree, Obi-Wan?”
“Absolutely.” Obi-Wan hoped the forest lighting was dim enough to hide his blush once he realized how quickly he’d answered, but it’s not like Feemor was wrong. They would need someone to put it together once they had everything, and Obi-Wan couldn’t use a forge.
Cody met his eyes with a soft expression, before he stepped further away from Obi-Wan and grabbed the reins of his horse.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “but I cannot help you. I’ve already spent an entire afternoon here, and I can’t afford to take a longer break to join you on your quest.”
Cody started walking away, and Obi-Wan found himself running to walk besides him before he could think better of it. “Please, wait! It wouldn’t be for long, I’ve only got two days before the spell I need the wand to undo becomes permanent, so you wouldn’t be away from your work for very long!” Obi-Wan took a deep breathe, continuing more calmly. “I made a mistake, and now my family and friends are suffering for it. I can pay you, more than twice what you would’ve made in those two days, and for today, too, I just, we need someone skilled enough to put the pieces together, and you’re the only blacksmith I know that can help.”
Cody stopped, letting go of the reins to set his hands on Obi-Wan’s shoulders. They were nice hands, very firm, very steady, and it was at that moment that Obi-Wan realized how quick his breathing had become.
“Peace, your highness, it’s alright. In and out, you know how to breathe, just like that.”
Cody waited until Obi-Wan’s chest no longer felt like the sword master’s punching sack before removing his hands.
“Okay, let’s talk about this. I don’t currently have any time sensitive jobs I’ve agreed to do, but I do have bills to pay, and for that I can’t just go haring off into the wild with you, as delightful as that would be. However,” Cody raised his hand soothingly as Obi-Wan inhaled to protest, “if you can assure me at least 150 guilders by this time next week, it doesn’t need to be the first thing done once you’ve got your wand, just as long as it’s by then that’s alright, then I can help you.”
Obi-Wan, in the most indecorous behavior he’d done since that time he and Quinlan tried training frogs to play fetch, hugged him.
“I take it that means yes?”
Obi-Wan stepped back and nodded, laughing sheepishly at the way he’d just thrown himself into Cody’s arms.
“Well come along then, Prince Kenobi. There’s an old gem dealer a few hour’s ride from here, and if he doesn’t know where to find an 'eternally lit gem of ice', it can’t be found," Cody said. "He’s known to be a bit stingy on his details, but if you can out talk Grievous I think we’ll be just fine.”
Cody winked at him, and for all that Obi-Wan would never, ever say it aloud, he had to admit to the slightest, tiniest possibility that Feemor was right.