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I make every turn by memory, by feel
Towards a black horizon
An unbroken dawn
(The Killers, Bright Lights)
32 BBY - To-San, Mid Rim. Two months after the Battle of Naboo
Obi-Wan passed one hand through his hair, and found himself once again startled by the soft strands that were growing out of his padawan cut.
He glanced back at the dejected column under his care, his eyes instinctively going to his padawan - his padawan, Force protect him.
Two rows behind him, Anakin was a perfect image of Jedi composure, marching with his chin high and his shoulders square as he led the Consul’s youngest daughter by the hand. Obi-Wan couldn’t help the quirk of his lips at the contrast with the sheer misery he was radiating in the Force.
After five days of this wretched trudge across To-San’s rugged mountains, Obi-Wan could hardly blame him.
Qui-Gon would have called it the will of the Force, but Obi-Wan thought it was just damn rotten luck that had turned his first mission with his new padawan into a near disaster. It should have been a simple diplomatic mission, in which the Jedi had been called to supervise the signing of the treaty meant to put a symbolic end to a civil war that had been over for almost a year now. Obi-Wan supposed that shooting down their diplomatic ship before they could even enter atmosphere was as clear a way as any for the insurgents to make their opinion on the treaty known.
And now he, his nine-year-old padawan, the Consul, his pregnant wife and their four children had been stranded for five days in this blasted wasteland, with at least four more days to go before they could reach the nearest loyalist stronghold.
“How much longer, Master Jedi?”
Obi-Wan managed to hide his wince at the title.
“Not much, Sanna,” he told the teenage girl that had walked up to him. She, too, looked exhausted, and even more now that she'd been holding her youngest brother L'ar for the last couple of hours.
He squinted at the long shadows of the late afternoon, pointing out a saddle nestled between two jagged cliffs in front of them.
“We need to reach that pass before nightfall. I don’t want us to camp on this path, it’s too narrow. And, if we’re lucky, we might find a source of water on the northern side.”
“But I’m tired,” said L’ar, his lekku dropping.
“It's closer than it looks,” Obi-Wan told him, smiling. “Turn back and watch how far that abandoned barn looks; we were there only one hour ago.”
L’ar didn't seem particularly heartened by the comparison; Obi-Wan supposed that to a tired and hungry two-year-old one hour would feel like an eternity.
“Have you heard him, Dur-Lan? We just have to make it to that pass.”
Obi-Wan shot a worried look at the Consular’s wife, who was closing the column with her husband. She wasn’t far along, luckily, and was responding to their predicament with stoic resignation, but her husband was understandably out of his mind with worry.
“I heard, honey,” she murmured. “Let’s keep walking.”
*
They made it to the pass a little after nightfall. Obi-Wan had lit up his lightsaber to show the way, Anakin taking up the rear with his training saber. It would have been useless in a fight, but it worked well enough as a torch.
Sanna, her father Colmar and her twelve-year-old brother Dar-mel helped Anakin set up camp, while Obi-Wan went in search of fresh water. There had been no hope of finding it along the southern slope they’d climbed, all the snow having long since melted in the summer heat, but Obi-Wan was hopeful to find some on the other side.
He was not disappointed, managing to find a clear spring after almost falling to his death in the dark only twice. He filled up the four canteens they’d managed to retrieve from the wreckage of the ship, then stilled as he heard a faint buzz in the dark.
He powered down his weapon and waited, his heart hammering in his chest.
Yes, definitely a probe droid.
It was unfortunate that the Force couldn’t tell him exactly where the blasted thing was, but it enhanced his hearing enough to give him a general idea. He slammed one hand forward, grimacing at the shriek of exploding metal as the probe droid hit the opposite side of the ravine.
It hadn’t been his cleanest job, but it would do.
*
“I couldn’t retrieve the probe droid, so I don’t know whether it was advanced enough to transmit a live feed to whoever sent it. If it was, there is no way it didn’t pick up my lightsaber. We must work on the assumption that they know where we are.”
The Consul looked at him with wide, worried eyes, his fingers nervously fumbling with the once pristine Ghorman silk of his sleeve; his wife merely sighed, one hand smoothing her shirt on her still flat belly. Obi-Wan had to admit that, for people born into the planet’s nobility, the Ners were adapting to their predicament remarkably well.
“We don't wear blasters just for show,” Dur’Lan said, her lekku twitching. “We won't be useless, if it comes to that.”
“I can shoot as well,” Sanna said from her mother's side. At sixteen, she had been deemed old enough to get the bad news. “Technically Dar-mel can, too, but he couldn't hit the wide side of a blurrg if his life depended on it.”
“I’m ready to fight, Master,” Anakin interjected.
Obi-Wan bit his lower lip to stop himself from laughing and wondered whether he, too, had been so eager at nine. Judging from what he remembered of Qui-Gon’s expressions, he had likely still been at thirteen.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to fighting, padawan.”
“Do we need to wake up the children and leave, Master Jedi?” Colmar asked, looking at the shapes of his sons and daughters, huddled in their thermal blankets against the tall cliff of rock. Anakin, apparently, had refused to go to sleep before Obi-Wan returned, and Obi-Wan hadn't had the heart to repay his good manners with sending him to bed without giving him the news.
“No,” Obi-Wan said. “We are on high ground, and the insurgents don’t have vehicles that can make it through these mountains. The worst they can throw at us is droids, and they worry me less than a nighttime trek down this slope with five children.”
Anakin’s resentment at being grouped with the other children shot acrid across the Force; Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, thankful for the dark, then shook his head as Dur’Lan handed him a ration bar. “You eat it, Milady. You and your child need it more than I do.”
“You haven’t eaten this morning either, Master Jedi,” Colmar said, frowning. “We need you functioning.”
Obi-Wan gave him a wry smile. “I know. I’m not playing the hero, Consul Ner, I assure you. We Jedi simply have more reserves than other people. If I need to eat, I will. Anakin, why don’t you take one?”
Anakin glanced down. “I’ve already eaten with Dar’mel and Lana,” he said, then blushed.
Obi-Wan blinked, surprised at his embarrassment, but then thought Anakin’s mother had probably taught him it was bad manners to eat without waiting for others.
“That’s good,” he said, offering him the canteen they were sharing.
Anakin chugged the water down with a little too much enthusiasm, his eyes lighting up at every gulp. It made Obi-Wan smile; the simple existence of fresh water still seemed to amaze this desert-born child.
“I don't want to give you false hopes, but while I was searching for water I sensed other life forms not far — animals, not people,” he added hastily at the Ners’ anxious expressions. “Where there are animals there is vegetation. We can forage for berries and roots.”
“I can hunt! I hunt womprats all the time, when Watto doesn't give us enough to eat,” Anakin said, then immediately flushed to his ears.
“What? The Jedi don't give you enough to eat?” Sanna asked, looking between him and Obi-Wan.
“This Watto character isn't a Jedi. Anakin came to the Order two months ago,” Obi-Wan hastened to explain. “His previous living conditions were… rough. He grew up in Hutt space.”
He glanced at Anakin, who didn't meet his gaze, looking down at his small fists.
“Poor soul,” Dur’Lan murmured. “Do you like being with the Jedi, Anakin?”
“Yeah,” the boy blurted out. “The food is amazing, there are so many wizard things from all over the Galaxy. But I like Dex’s even more!”
“Of course you do,” Obi-Wan said, chuckling. “Well, now that we're all fed I daresay it's time to plan the watch turns. I can take first watch.”
“Let me,” Colmar said with a half-smile. “I can stay awake for as long as I need to, but once I go to sleep it’s over.”
“Yeah, you'd need a turbolaser to wake up dad during the night,” Sanna said, which made her parents laugh. “I can take the last watch, I'm used to getting up early to study. Mom, don't try it, I can wake up early but I can't carry you down this path if you don't get enough sleep.”
Her mother opened her mouth as if to reply, then sighed. “I know. I'll be of more help if I can look after myself. You are a darling, Sanna.”
The girl smiled at her mother, and Obi-Wan nodded. “We have a deal. Wake me up at midnight.”
“Us, Master,” Anakin said, very serious. “I am a Jedi, too.”
“Of course you are, Anakin.” He winked at Dur’Lan, who grinned back. “Wake us up at midnight, then.”
There was no reason to hurt the boy's feelings by excluding him on principle when he would inevitably fall asleep again ten minutes into his watch anyway.
*
As promised, Colmar woke them up a little after midnight, then went to sleep with his family as Obi-Wan and Anakin sat with their backs against the cliff and took up watch.
Obi-Wan stifled a groan as he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, then dragged them down to cover a yawn, shivering as the chill of the night brushed against his still sleep-warm neck.
The only upside to the situation was that, at least, sitting against the cliff was more comfortable than lying on the uneven ground with sharp rocks poking at his back.
Beside him, Anakin was huddled in a miserable bundle. He was sitting propped up against a rock, tightly cocooned in his thermal blanket. His eyes were fixed on the small nook into the mountain where the Ner family was asleep.
Obi-Wan followed his gaze, his shoulders slumping when he saw that the seven-year-old girl had fallen asleep into her mother’s arms.
He scooted over, coming closer to the child.
“Do you miss your mother, Anakin?” he asked softly.
Anakin scrunched his face and didn’t reply for a moment.
“I don’t,” he lied.
Obi-Wan sighed. “It’s unbecoming a Jedi to lie, padawan.”
“I’m trying not to miss her,” Anakin admitted. “But Master Yoda says there is no try.”
That made Obi-Wan chuckle. “This is not what Master Yoda means. He means that once you commit to something you must do your best — not that you have to succeed on the first try.”
“Then why does he say there is no try?”
A smile tugged at Obi-Wan’s lips. He remembered asking his own Master the same thing.
“Because it’s easier to remember, Anakin. Like a rhyme.”
Anakin seemed to ponder this new interpretation of Yoda's old adage.
“But what if I never manage to stop missing her?”
Obi-Wan stared at the child, impressed and surprised by his unusual candor. In the two months since he'd known him, Obi-Wan had already realized that Anakin was almost embarrassingly open about everything, except for what he perceived as a weakness — which, given his past, wasn't surprising. He must have been really tired to openly admit to his doubts this way, and Obi-Wan found himself at a loss.
Not for the first time, he wished his Master were here instead — and the thought brought a self-deprecating smile to his lips.
Right now, he was probably the worst person imaginable to teach how to let go of missing someone dear.
“You will learn to, in time,” he said, scratching at the stupid, prickly stubble on his chin. “As all Jedi do.”
As all Jedi try to,
his traitorous mind supplied.
“I want to learn now,” Anakin said, a little insouciantly.
Sighing, Obi-Wan looked at the lonely, cold boy sitting beside him, and lifted his arm and the thermal blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
“That speaks well of your commitment, padawan, but midnight on a mountain pass isn’t the moment I would choose for a lesson on attachment. Come here. You’re cold.”
The boy eyed him warily. “I’m not cold.”
“You are. I can sense it in the Force. Also, I have eyes. You’re shivering.”
Anakin pouted. “You aren’t cold.”
“I am,” Obi-Wan said tiredly. “Just not as much as you. I wasn’t born on a desert planet, Anakin, and I can regulate my body temperature with the Force. Come here.”
His shoulders slumping, the boy gave in and crawled under Obi-Wan’s outstretched arm and blanket.
“I don’t want to be a problem, Master,” he murmured. “I want to be a Jedi like you.”
“In time, Anakin,” Obi-Wan murmured. “In time.”
*
Predictably, Anakin fell asleep a few moments later, and slept through their watch tucked at Obi-Wan’s side, his head lolling against Obi-Wan’s chest. When Sanna came to relieve him, Obi-Wan picked the boy up and laid him down again a few steps lower down the path, where the slope smoothed enough to accommodate them both.
He woke up at dawn, Anakin still sleeping soundly beside him; the Consul and his wife woke up a little later, allowing their daughter to catch a few more precious minutes of sleep while Obi-Wan trudged down the slope in search of food.
This time, topography wasn’t on their side. There were woods ahead, but to reach them he’d had to traverse a deep hollow and climb the opposite side; optimistically it would take him a few hours to do the trek, forage and come back, and it was time they didn’t have, not with probe droids on the move.
Trying to ignore his rumbling stomach, he resigned again to skipping his breakfast, since by now they were left with just four ration bars for the eight of them.
With some luck, he would have food for lunch; if he didn’t, he was fairly sure he still had enough energy to go through the day with nothing more than a mild headache.
Tomorrow, he would definitely need to eat.
He refilled the canteens on the way up, and by the time he returned to the camp he found it already dismounted, his companions ready to leave.
“Master Jedi, we saved a ration bar for you,” Sanna said, handing him a half-empty wrap.
“Keep it for emergencies. There are woods in the valley below, I’m positive we’ll find some food before noon. Padawan, I need you here,” he added as he turned to Anakin.
The boy was leaning against a boulder with his face in a tight, displeased frown. Blinking, Obi-Wan walked up to him.
“What is it?”
“You didn't wake me up when I fell asleep during guard. Master.”
“You are nine, Anakin. You need to sleep.”
“Then why did you tell me to take watch with you if you were going to let me sleep anyway?”
It took Obi-Wan all his training to stifle his instinctive groan. They really didn't have time for this, and he was very aware of the Ners’ eyes on them and of how they were making his neck flush a deep red. He racked his brains trying to come up with what Qui-Gon would have said.
“I didn't need you to watch with me yesterday, Anakin. One person is enough to listen for probe droids in the night. I need you to be on the lookout now, when it's easier for a droid to pass unheard in the noises of the day. And you need to be awake to help me.”
Anakin snapped to attention like a spring, his short braid bouncing against his ear. “I’m at your service, Master, sir.”
Obi-Wan grimaced at the unfortunate phrasing, but didn’t comment on it. He didn’t want to draw attention to it in front of strangers.
“I don’t need service. I’m going to be on the lookout for probe droids in the Force, and I want you to walk with me and pay attention to what I do.”
“Can I try to search for probe droids, too?”
Obi-Wan passed one hand across his face to hide a smile. “If I can sense your focus is strong enough, yes.”
Anakin’s eager grin lit up his face. “Yes, Master. Let’s go, Master!”
*
The morning wasn’t yet halfway to noon and the sun was already scorching.
Obi-Wan could feel the beginning of a nasty sunburn on the unprotected back of his neck and the shell of one ear, and the Ner family wasn’t faring much better. It would have taken Obi-Wan a little longer than one hour to reach the bottom of the hollow; they had just barely reached it, and they had started walking more than two hours earlier.
Anakin, at least, seemed unfazed by the heat, but Obi-Wan was growing worried about him.
“I can't sense anything,” the boy snapped, tugging at his braid.
It hadn’t taken Obi-Wan long to realize that the boy struggled with focus, still too young to manage channeling his overwhelming energy into stillness rather than movement.
Today, though, Anakin's difficulties went far beyond what was usual for a boy his age, possibly even an untrained one: the simple existence of schools made Obi-Wan fairly sure that even a normal nine-year-old was supposed to be able to focus on a simple task for longer than a handful of minutes at a time.
The boy’s earlier enthusiasm had lasted maybe fifteen minutes, crashing against his utter lack of concentration. After that, he dutifully — or, less charitably but more aptly, mulishly — persevered in giving the impression that he was paying attention.
The only thing he had managed so far was a pair of scraped knees when he’d tumbled down the path and almost fallen down the ravine.
On another occasion, Obi-Wan would have found it amusing; now it was just inconvenient, if not downright harmful. He didn’t need to add Anakin to his already overwhelming pile of worries. He’d also wished he could share the burden of sensing for probes.
By the time they reached the small alpine lake at the other end of the hollow, and were faced with climbing the other side, just when Obi-Wan’s mild headache was starting to turn into thrumming pain, L’ar decided to make his displeasure known by throwing a spectacular tantrum.
Obi-Wan supposed he should be thankful it hadn’t happened earlier; for a toddler, the Consul’s son had shown Jedi levels of restraint.
At this point, a pause was overdue.
Obi-Wan found a convenient spot by the lake, shadowed by a jutting pinnacle of rock but high enough to allow him and the two other adults a full view over both the saddle they had left and the one they were about to climb. That settled, the children were let free to take a short dip into the shallow, crystalline waters.
Obi-Wan’s surprise when Anakin didn’t follow the loud gaggle of children lasted for a mere moment; after that, he could have kicked himself for not realizing it earlier.
“You don’t know how to swim, Anakin, do you?”
The boy shook his head forlornly.
“Not to worry,” Consul Ner said. “Sanna can teach you. The lake is shallow, there is no danger at all. Go on, child.”
Anakin shook his head again. “Don’t feel like it,” he muttered.
“At least go dip your feet, padawan. It will help with the heat.”
“I’m not hot,” Anakin said sullenly. “I just want to rest.”
Obi-Wan wouldn’t say that two months had made him any kind of expert on his padawan, but he was fairly sure that the only appropriate response to Anakin Skywalker claiming he needed to rest was alarm. He pressed the back of his hand against the boy’s forehead, rolling his eyes when he batted his hand away.
“I don’t have a fever,” Anakin snapped. “I’m just tired.”
“And hungry,” Obi-Wan said. “Why don’t you have the half ration left from breakfast?”
Anakin looked down. “I’m not hungry, Master. I’m used to going without food. Those children aren't."
Obi-Wan straightened his back, suddenly alarmed. “Anakin, the fact that you used to— wait.”
He sprang to his feet, unlit lightsaber in hand.
“Master! What is—”
The bolt shot through the still air, a silent sliver of flash-fast light. Obi-Wan swung one arm to push Anakin behind him, sending the bolt straight back into the probe that had emerged from behind a pinnacle of rock. The droid buckled, fired once more, then exploded as a blaster bolt hit its chassis.
Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of the Consul and his wife both standing with their blasters raised, but he barely registered it before spotting a second probe droid retreating to avoid the same end as its companion.
“Kri—blast it!” Obi-Wan snapped, remembering just in time he was also supposed to set an example of good manners. “Anakin, go and protect the other children! Remember last week's shii-cho and you'll be fine!”
Without preamble, and without listening to Anakin’s hissed protests, he unceremoniously dropped his lightsaber into the boy’s palm, then turned to the two adults.
“Do any of you have a spare blaster, by any chance?”
*
Fifteen minutes, two destroyed droids and a nasty graze on his arm later, Obi-Wan made it back to the lake.
His stomach dropped at the sight that awaited him.
A probe droid must have found them, judging from the still sizzling pile of molten metal and circuitry. The Ners seemed to have come out of it unscathed, but both parents and the two eldest children were huddled around Anakin, who was sitting with his back against a rock and his head in his hands.
Obi-Wan ran.
“Padawan.” He dropped down onto one knee in front of the child, the others shuffling to make room for him. “What happened?”
“My head,” Anakin sobbed. “It hurts.”
“He just dropped down crying when the probe droid attacked,” Dur’Lan explained, her eyes wide with worry.
Obi-Wan sighed. “Every apprentice’s nightmare. Force exertion. Very unpleasant, but nothing to worry about. We’ve all been through it.” He rested one finger above the slope of Anakin’s nose. “Anakin, close your eyes and breathe. This will be a little uncomfortable, but it’s important you don’t fight me.”
The boy nodded, squeezing his eyes closed around the tears that shimmered on his eyelashes, and Obi-Wan noticed with a pang in his chest that Anakin was still clutching his lightsaber in the small fist he pressed to his temple.
Reaching out, Obi-Wan poured comfort into the Force, trying to soothe the burning edges of the boy’s mind. Anakin tensed in reaction, his inchoate mental defenses springing up, but when Obi-Wan murmured “relax”, he slowly, painfully let him in.
A small sigh told Obi-Wan it was working. Gently he retreated, and the boy let his hands fall away from his head.
“What was that?” he whispered, looking up in awe.
“Very minor Force healing,” Obi-Wan explained. He pushed himself to his feet and stretched out one hand to help Anakin up, and tried not to grimace as his own blooming headache flared. “We haven’t been eating enough, and this kind of focus requires energies you don’t have.” He looked back at the Ners. “What about the probe droid?”
“We took care of it,” the Consul said dryly. “How many did you get?”
“Two.”
“They know we are here.”
Obi-Wan just nodded. “If your information on the insurgent bases is sound, we still have a little less than a day before combat droids reach us. We need to get to those woods. We need food and cover.”
*
It took them five hours to reach the first clusters of trees, and by then the children were at their limits.
The seven-year-old and the toddler had shared the last fragment of ration bar midway between the lake and now; with nothing else left, they wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight when the enemy finally caught up to them.
“I am sorry, Master Jedi,” Colmar said, grimacing. “We are totally useless here. We’re from the other hemisphere, and we wouldn’t know how to recognize a safe berry from a deadly one.”
“Not to worry,” Obi-Wan sighed. “I can manage it. Stay hidden.”
He was about to once again hand his lightsaber to Anakin when Dur’Lan rested one hand on his wrist.
“Master Jedi, a word, if you please?”
Frowning, Obi-Wan followed her and her daughter deeper into the trees.
“What is it, Milady?”
“I am already having a hard time coming to terms with a young man starving himself for my family's sake. I would never have let a child do the same.”
Obi-Wan blinked. “I don't follow, Milady. Anakin refused to have more than your children, but he isn't refusing food.”
“I told you he didn't know,” Sanna said, shaking her head.
“I didn't know what?” Obi-Wan asked with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“Master Kenobi, your apprentice hasn't eaten anything since yesterday morning. Can I assume this is not a part of his Jedi training?”
Obi-Wan took an involuntary step back. “What? No, of course not. What do you mean, he hasn’t eaten?”
“My brother told me Anakin has been giving up his ration to the younger children,” Sanna explained.
Obi-Wan blinked, then groaned and hid his face in his hands.
“Oh, for the love of the Force. I hadn’t realized,” he admitted, and was surprised at how much it stung. “I haven't been around during meals, and he told me he had eaten… Why didn't you tell me sooner? He's nine years old, of course I wouldn't let him starve!”
“We didn't know, either,” Sanna said, grimacing. “I just found out myself.”
“But why would he do this?” Obi-Wan asked, bewildered.
“I'm afraid,” Dur’Lan said gently, “that your apprentice believes you were teaching by example. And he learned.”
*
Obi-Wan ignored the pang of guilt in his stomach as he beckoned Anakin to follow him rather than leave him to rest with the other children. By now the boy was running on nothing but sheer stubbornness, but Obi-Wan didn’t want to teach him this particular lesson in front of an audience.
They didn’t talk as they made their way downwards among the trees, Anakin stumbling behind him; Obi-Wan spared what little energy he had left on making sure he didn’t risk falling.
For once, the Force was on their side. It didn’t take them long to find a thicket of thorny bushes heavy with berries. Dutifully, Anakin opened his backpack and took out a soft plastoid satchel.
“We can’t go on for four days with just berries,” the boy murmured.
“No,” Obi-Wan agreed. “We’ll need to find roots, and hunt. But let’s start from the berries, padawan.”
He observed Anakin as they systematically stripped the bushes of all its fruits; the boy’s hunger was made painfully clear by the rumbling of his stomach, which kept making him flush, but he didn’t once try to smuggle a berry into his mouth. It was a feat of resilience Obi-Wan himself was having a hard time imitating.
When they were done, he stood up.
“This won’t be enough for four days, but it’s almost enough for today,” he said, then beckoned the padawan to follow him.
If he wasn’t mistaken, if what he had glimpsed from above—
There.
In a clearing not far from the berry bushes stood a small tree that had once been laden with fruit. Most now lay rotting at its feet, but four were still on the branches, ripe red and tantalizing.
Obi-Wan could practically feel Anakin’s mouth watering in the Force.
Smiling, he walked up to the muna tree and picked the fruits, then turned to Anakin and dropped two in his hands.
“Padawan. Eat.”
Without waiting for Anakin’s response, he bit down on one fruit, the sweet juice heavenly on his starved taste buds.
“But — Master. Aren’t we supposed to share?”
Ignoring the undignified juice that fell down his chin, Obi-Wan smiled. “We’ll share the berries. Eat that fruit, Anakin.”
The boy’s frown deepened. “I don’t understand.”
Obi-Wan took another bite, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. It was a little uncivilized, but he’d have to make do.
Sitting down on the grass, he motioned Anakin to sit beside him.
“What is our responsibility as Jedi, padawan?”
Anakin looked down at the fruit in his hands, then back up at Obi-Wan.
“Helping others. Helping those who can’t help themselves.”
“Exactly. And what do these people need from us, Anakin?”
The boy thought it over. “Food,” he said. “A guide through the mountains. Protection from the droids.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “Right again. And tell me, Anakin, what food gives more energy? The berries, or these?”
“These,” Anakin said immediately, lifting his hands a little to show the fruit. “That’s why—”
“That’s why we are eating them,” Obi-Wan said. “If we give up our food, who is going to get more when we’re too weak to get up?”
Anakin blinked, then stared at him.
“Sanna told me you’ve been giving up your food,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “That’s why you couldn’t focus earlier, Anakin. Your body needs energy, and so does your mind.”
“But the children—”
“They weren’t going to die of hunger. And, even if they were, their life isn’t more important than yours anyway.”
“But you were giving up your food, and I am a Jedi, too.”
“You are a padawan learner,” Obi-Wan said, a little sternly. “I know how much I need to eat to function. You don’t yet, Anakin. That’s why I’m here to teach you. So, when I tell you to eat, eat.”
He smiled again, nudged at the fruit in Anakin’s hands, then took another bite off his.
The boy stood still for a moment, apparently struck, then grinned and bit down on the first fruit, leaving Obi-Wan to watch with mixed awe and horror the wonders of childhood appetite.
When Anakin was done, his face, hands, and tunics were smeared in thick, orangey juice; Obi-Wan could only shake his head.
“It’s a pity there isn’t another lake nearby,” he said, tossing the fruit stone behind his back. “You’d really benefit from—”
“Master!” Anakin yelled. “Watch out!”
Obi-Wan already had his lightsaber in his hand, the Force flaring at the same moment in his and Anakin’s ears. He batted away the blaster bolts with precision, grimacing a little at the strain in his wounded arm, then sent the probe crashing back against a nearby tree.
Chest heaving, he powered off his lightsaber and turned back to his apprentice, who was looking up at him with wide, hopeful eyes.
“Did you see it, Master? I sensed the probe droid before you did!”
Obi-Wan chuckled, and decided that for this time he wasn’t going to disabuse the child of the notion.
“Indeed,” he said, hooking back the hilt to his belt. “The wonders of a full stomach.”
Anakin grinned, shuffling his weight on his feet, then pursed his lips, his expression suddenly sly. “Can I have some berries, too?”