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What Was Left of the High Ground

Summary:

The wound kept walking long after the war ended.

 

a character study of Obi-Wan Kenobi

Notes:

[Filed: Unknown Sector | Classification: Jedi Lost | Format: Fragmented Echo]
[Status: Ever-Incomplete | Entry: Growing Like Grief]

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

I. //TRANSMISSION: Static | From: the Ghost of a Planet That Burned

“There is no death, there is the Force,”
but that is a lie, and we both know it.

Because death was a boy on fire.
Death was a scream echoing from the high ground.
Death was a woman in white who believed in peace.
Death was a brother with yellow in his eyes and smoke in his lungs.
Death was the look on Padmé’s face when she whispered,
“There’s still good in him.”

And Obi-Wan,
you carried every death in your hands
like lightsabers you could never ignite again.

You buried the galaxy in silence.
You wore your mourning like a second robe.
You mourned him
long before the lava touched his skin.

 

II. //ENTRY: Classified Holo-Journal // Jedi Temple Archives (Redacted)

Subject: Kenobi, Obi-Wan // Annotation: “He does not sleep.”

Born on a world forgotten by the mapmakers.

Taken before he knew the word “choice.”

Raised in silence, sharpened like a knife.

Loved quietly. Always quietly.

Lost everything. Still stood.

He never wanted to be Master.
He only wanted to be enough.

But duty came first.
And love?
Love came with rules. With borders. With endings.
And still, he kept it in his eyes.

They say Jedi are meant to let go.

But Obi-Wan held on to grief like it was a lightsaber hilt:
balanced, burned-in, necessary.
He could not let go.
He did not let go.

And so he became the last page of a history book written in ashes.

Cross-reference: Order 66
Sub-note: Jedi Master Kenobi listed as primary survivor. Secondary designation: WITNESS.

 

III. //DOCUMENTARY POETICS FROM THE DESERT // Author: “Old Ben” (unverified)

A list of things he buried in the sand:

his name
his order
his brother’s ghost
every scream from Mustafar
his own voice
every prophecy he ever believed in
every last bit of youth that had not already been burned

A list of things he could not bury:

a child’s laughter
a woman’s dying plea
the word hope
the Force (damn it)
himself
Anakin

He watered the sand with silence.
Built his prayers out of vapor.
Became a hermit and a horizon.
Became nothing so that something might survive.

His existence became an ellipsis:
Not a period.
Not a comma.
But a pause
before the galaxy tried again.

 

IV. //GLITCHED INTERLUDE: Jedi Council Room [Playback Distorted]

Anakin: “You’re asking me to spy on the Chancellor.”
Obi-Wan: “The Council is asking you.”

— pause. rewind. play again.

Obi-Wan: “The Council is asking you.”
Obi-Wan: I am asking you.
Obi-Wan: I am begging you.
Obi-Wan: I do not know how to save you and I hate myself for it.

He was never just a master.
He was a man trying to hold back an ocean
with his hands.

And drowning anyway.

Each conversation was a chess match with the Devil.
Every silence—
a scream that never made it past his tongue.
Every moment of trust—
a countdown to betrayal.

The war ended long before the guns did.
The war ended the day they stopped seeing each other.

 

V. //UNAUTHORIZED PRAYER: A Jedi Does Not Beg (Except When He Does)

O Force,
if you are listening
(if you are real)
(if you have not turned away like the rest of them)

grant me this:

Let the boy survive.
Let his heart be stronger than my failure.
Let my hands not tremble when I pass the saber.
Let him never know what I have done.

Let me fade as gently as a myth.
Let me become the space between stars.
Let me be forgotten.

Oh, but let me see him smile again.
Just once.
I would break a thousand codes for that.

Oh, Force, forgive me for my love.
Forgive me for what it turned me into.
Forgive me for surviving when he did not.

Annotation from Force Echo Reader: This prayer was found etched into the cave wall near the Lars homestead. It glowed for a moment, then disappeared into sand. It is unclear who it was for—Anakin, Luke, or himself.

 

VI. //FROM: The Mind of Obi-Wan, Age 57 (Tatooine, dusk)

“The sand shifts like memory—both coarse and inevitable.”

They say I am wise,
but it is only because I have made so many mistakes
I have run out of new ones.

I speak in proverbs to hide the ache in my teeth.
I walk slow to keep from falling apart.
I pretend peace, but I still hear his scream in the night.
He calls me Master
like a curse
like a noose
like a name I never deserved.

And I still see his eyes—
not the gold, but the blue
before they burned.

He was beautiful.
He was brilliant.
He was mine.

And then he was gone.

 

VII. //REDACTED VISIONS: Nights on Tatooine [Dreamcode: 1138]

[Obi-Wan stands in a temple made of fire. Anakin approaches. The light flickers.]

ANAKIN: “You said you loved me.”
OBI-WAN: “I did.”
ANAKIN: “You left me.”
OBI-WAN: “You burned me.”
ANAKIN: “You still watch him.”
OBI-WAN: “He is the last thing that is good.”
ANAKIN: “He is not yours.”
OBI-WAN: “Nothing is mine anymore.”

[The fire turns to water. Obi-Wan kneels in it.]

VOICE (unheard):
This is how a Jedi dies—
kneeling in love,
drowning in failure,
dreaming of sons who never knew his name.

His dreams smell like blood and lavender.
His ghosts walk with bare feet, trailing ash.
He does not wake up—
He resurrects
into the same day
every day.

 

VIII. //FIELD REPORT: Final Transmission from Mapuzo [Encrypted, Lost]

I did what I could.
I tried to be what he needed.
I tried to be what they needed.

But I am tired.

I am tired of carrying the myth of peace
in a world that devours its prophets.

I am tired of speaking gently to ghosts
and sharpening my grief like a blade
because the next war always comes.

I am tired of being the survivor
when all the good men are gone.

I do not know what a Jedi is anymore.
But I know what I am:

a wound wrapped in robes.
a prayer still whispered in broken binary.
a man who loved his brother and lost the galaxy.

And I am still waiting for the Force to answer.

 

IX. //ADDITIONAL MEMORY FILE: Mustafar // [Contaminated Playback]

Obi-Wan: “You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you.”
System Error: [Emotional overload detected. Rerouting to Sorrow Subdrive.]
Playback continues:

[Kenobi stands surrounded by fire, shaking. He cannot breathe. He is not choking—he is remembering.]

The lava reflected back the worst parts of him.
The parts he had locked beneath codes and silence.
The parts that whispered:
You failed him.
You failed her.
You failed all of them.

And still he didn’t jump.
He didn’t fall.
He walked away.

Because he had to.

Because he must.

Because that’s what Jedi do.
Even when their hearts are ashes.

 

X. //MISSING PAGE FROM THE JOURNAL OF LUKE SKYWALKER

Found tucked in a robe on Ahch-To.

He was the kindest man I ever met.
He lied to protect me.
He faded to protect me.

He held his silence
like a soldier holds his last breath.
And I never asked him what it cost.

I wish I had.

I wish I had said his name more.
I wish I had thanked him.
I wish I had told him he wasn’t wrong.
That he saved me.

He carried my father's light
even when it burned him.

He carried it all the way here.

And he left it for me.

 

XI. //RETRIEVED HOLO-ECHO FROM YODA, RECOVERED POSTMORTEM

“Strong he was.
Steady.
Much sorrow, he bore.
And yet, love him still, the Force did.”

Even legends grieve.

 

XII. //EPILOGUE: A Voice in the Force [recorded in stillness]

There is no death, there is the Force.

But if the Force remembers
if it grieves
if it holds the shape of things lost—

Then somewhere in the breath between stars
there is a man
watching two suns set
and whispering a name.

Anakin.

Still.

Always.

Until the end.

[END FILE]
[DO NOT DELETE]
[HE WAS LOVED]
[HE WAS LOVED]
[HE WAS LOVED]
[AND HE LOVED BACK]

Notes:

Hope you enjoyed! I really like Obi-Wan's character — he may be one of my favorites. This study on him was inevitable.

You can find me on Bluesky ( @the_wild_poet25 ) and on my new Twitter account (the_tamed_poet) if you want to connect. I'm also on Discord too!

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