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Obi-Wan had the tearful conversation with Jon in the Forge (the only place they could be alone, if you counted Ruus’buir and Tan’ika as part of the aloneness) that started out with Obi-Wan asking Jon what exactly he had said to Satine to make her stop arguing and generally leave him alone, and then progressed to airing his own shame and guilt about the suppressant issue, and his rock-solid determination to leave a sufficient quantity of pheromone suppressant with Bo-Katan and Satine, for his younger self to have, and Jon was just…
Jon was so kind about it all. Rather like Master Plo had been.
And Obi-Wan was feeling utterly wretched when all was said and done, and Ruus’buir was being very kind giving them some space, even if Tan’ika was practically vibrating with concern, he was also being kept quite busy, when an hour later, he and Jon were winding up their talk.
“Look, Obi-Wan. You were both young. You both held some measure of power over the other. You both made mistakes. So, you can let this guilt and shame eat you alive, or you can do something constructive with it.”
“What do you suggest?” Obi-Wan asked, sniffling into his handkerchief.
“Well, two things, really. The easy one is to meditate with me. Master Fay--”
“Fay’buir,” Obi-Wan corrected.
“-yes, thank you, Fay’buir, has a good meditation to release shame.”
“Right, definitely. Can we do it now?” Obi-Wan asked, perhaps just a touch desperately.
“No,” Jon said quietly, kindly, and uncompromisingly.
Obi-Wan visibly pouted. He also sniffled pathetically, but it didn’t move Jon.
“First, you need to actually talk to Satine.”
Obi-Wan felt just slightly lightheaded, and so put his head down on the table with a bit of a thunk, while groaning. He could feel Jon’s fingers rubbing lightly at the back of his neck, just inside his gorget.
“You know what I told her. You’ve had a little distance from this situation. It’ll give you an opportunity to take what responsibility is yours for the situation - which is half, or less than, Obi-Wan - and also give you both an opportunity to come to grips with both the mutual attraction you have--”
Obi-Wan groaned in distaste.
“--or that you both had, as well as the mutual distaste you both have for each other. It may go poorly. It may go well. She may not want to engage at all, and you can’t control that. But it will lessen the anchor holds that the shame has on you. Talking with Satine and making an attempt to clear the air between you will make the Shame Release Meditation actually effective. And if she won’t engage, and she doesn’t want to talk about it at all, even when you ask specifically and directly, then you can let it go, knowing that you made a good-faith effort to do it.”
“How exactly did you get so wise?” Obi-Wan asked from his faceplant position in the low table between them. His nose was squished and his voice was slightly muffled.
Jon sighed. “Fay’buir has helped me process a lot of stuff from Kuro, and more recently also, stuff that has come up between Sifo-Dyas and I. I mean, he’s my lover, and I adore him, and also, sometimes the man irritates me to no end. And he was in the creche with Kuro, and that has been the root of all sorts of difficult moments between us. Fay’buir, and Nico, actually, have been very helpful in navigating our intimate relationship.”
“You talk to Fay about the sex you have?” Obi-Wan squeaked out in horror.
Jon sighed at him. “No. It’s not about the sex. The sex is fine. I mean, you know, really good most of the time and sometimes mindblowingly stellar. It’s everything else that is… kind of… a work in progress. It’s actually living with him as the days turned into weeks and months and years. That’s where the difficult moments come up.”
“You don’t actually live with him,” Obi-Wan felt the need to point out. “And sometimes you’re gone for months at a time.”
Jon sighed at him again. “Are you purposefully trying to misunderstand me? Or are you just being contrary to make a point of your own?”
Obi-Wan sighed, and realized that he was absolutely doing both. He knew what Jon meant, even if his words might not have been chosen perfectly. “Sorry, sorry.”
“Nico and Fay both assure me that it’s actually normal. When we let people into the inner most parts of ourselves, conflict arises there that doesn’t anywhere else, sometimes. And it’s not actually a bad thing; it’s an opportunity to learn better who we are, and what we need, and what we can offer, and where we still need to heal. And it’s maybe a painful and awkward opportunity, but it’s still the best one we’ll ever get, because we let so few people in that close to us. And so our intimate partner becomes a teacher of sorts; they’ll teach us about ourselves, if we let them, if we don’t run away, or squander the opportunity.”
“I feel like I’ve only really gotten a few of those opportunities with Jango and Myles, even though it’s been years,” Obi-Wan said, nose still squished on the table, but contemplatively all the same.
“You’re not often with them, and a vibrant sexlife can cover up a lot, and smooth over a lot, which isn’t necessarily the best when it comes to growing and changing, but it feels nicer, and is more temporarily convenient.”
And then Obi-Wan thought of the times that difficult conversations did, in fact, devolve into sex and the conversation was just… semi-permanently dropped.
“I feel seen,” he whined.
“So. You going to go have that conversation with Satine, then?”
Obi-Wan sighed.
“Yes,” he said quietly. No whining. No groaning. No more sighing. And no arguing, either.
Then he attempted upright for a moment to see if his blood pressure had fully regulated itself.
Ah. Excellent. It had.
He took a deep breath, and breathed in strength. He gave his fear to the Force, and honestly, it felt like being able to talk with Bruck, or Qui-Gon, but he couldn’t with Bruck and he wasn’t quite ready with Qui-Gon.
But Satine was here. And the Force had brought him here. So, maybe it was time to have that conversation with Satine.
And now that he’d whined about it a bit, and gotten that out of his system… now he was ready to be a responsible adult about it.
Right.
Right.
He could do this.
And he would.
“Miss Kryze, may we talk? Uncle, you don’t mind if I take your helper from you for a bit, do you?”
His older relative waved them off and Obi-Wan nodded and led Satine outside. It wasn’t safe for them to go outside the compound, but there was some informal seating out by the wall, beyond the training grounds, just some large rocks that were about the right size and shape and distance from each other for a fairly private, but entirely public conversation.
“Please, have a seat, Miss Kryze.”
“Thank you, Master Kenobi.”
Obi-Wan took a seating rock near to her.
“I would like to have a difficult conversation with you about the time we had an intimate relationship. I don’t mean to start an argument, and I sincerely hope it will not lead to one. I also don’t mean to blame you for everything, not at all. There are aspects you don’t know about, that I didn’t know about at the time, and there are subjects of which I ought to have brought to your attention in a calm and gentle way what your behavior did to me, and I did not. I am fully willing to take responsibility for my own mistakes, here, and that is the conversation I wish to have with you, if you are willing.”
She took a deep breath, and then another, and then holding the silence, a third and a fourth.
“Yes,” she finally said. “I am willing to have such a conversation. I would also like an opportunity to accept responsibility of the things… the things that I have done wrong.”
“I think,” Obi-Wan began, “that it might be good if we set a few ground rules. And if we can agree to them, then we can continue on, yes?”
She nodded.
“First, ‘I’ statements. For clarity’s sake, that means that we each talk about our own experience, and we do not presume to inform the other about what the other thinks, or feels, or knows, and we do not presume to say that ‘everyone’ thinks or feels or knows a thing. We speak only from our own point of view. Does that make sense? Is that something you can agree to?”
Satine took a moment to consider it, and Obi-Wan respected her all the more for it.
Finally she nodded.
“Second, if we’re broaching a particularly difficult or fraught thing for us individually, we announce that fact. That way the other has an opportunity to brace, and bring the most compassion and sensitivity to bear that they can. This is especially useful in making sure we do not accidentally step on each other’s faces, as it were, when we’re actually trying to do the opposite. Does that make sense? Is that something you can agree to?”
Again, Satine thought about it for some time before agreeing, and Obi-Wan’s respect for her grew.
“Third, we acknowledge that there is a difference between intent and impact. We can control what we intend, sometimes. We cannot control how our words and deeds impact others, and it may be widely and wildly different, intent from impact. And we can only speak to our own intent, and the way something has impacted us, and not about someone else’ intent, or how something impacted someone else. Does that make sense? Is that something you can agree to?”
Yet again, Satine took some time to digest the potential agreement before she nodded. And then she spoke.
Her voice was low, quiet, and if Obi-Wan was honest with himself, mildly attractive. “You know, I’ve heard these rules before, after a fashion. Political negotiation class, and a mediation class, and a few others from school. But… I realize now…” Satine rubbed her hand over her face. “This is so kriffed up,” she whispered. “It was all twisted. It was all about how to win negotiations, how to win arguments, how to change people’s mind so that they would agree to your demands. And… and you were trained in diplomacy and negotiations, at least the other you was, and so… I realize that I… I thought we had the same sort of training, in that way. Like with my classmates. And we would make a game of it, the argumentation, and, and so on. I mean, my classmates would. But if this is how you go about diplomacy and negotiation… it was like we were using two versions of the same language. All the words were the same, but they all had different meanings,” she said quietly, thoughtfully.
Obi-Wan nodded. “That is very useful to know, and I appreciate you sharing it with me. And honestly, it can go either way, with diplomatic negotiations. Because sometimes people who are yelling across the table, or the battlefield, don’t realize how much they have in common, and my job is to help them see that, and so I have to know both very deeply, and that’s usually the crux of the matter; they haven’t bothered to get to know the other deeply and in a sympathetic and compassionate way. They have no idea just how much they have in common with each other. And other times… it’s quite different. Not that they have nothing in common, because common ground can always be found. It’s that the hatred that separates them is so profound that no commonality matters. And in such cases the negotiator does need to strong arm people to come to the table, to reach an agreement, because their hatred is just too vast for them to be rational and reasonable sentients about anything concerning the other. But the heavy handed approach, which is how I would generally characterize the training you’ve described to me, that is used rarely, and as a last resort. It is the verbal version of aggressive negotiations. It is like eviscerating someone with a lightsaber, it’s just using one’s words to do it. And to use it for every disagreement, every dispute… it would be like me using my lightsaber to end an argument over pudding vs. tarts in the kitchen. It’s overkill, technically speaking. Using an ion cannon to swat a fly, sort of thing.”
She nodded and they let the silence draw out between them. It was not uncomfortable. It was thoughtful, and full of possibility.
“I see why you kept pushing back about violence being more than just physical. I didn’t understand that at all at the time. My words were violent. They were terribly violent to you. I am sorry about that, Master Kenobi. It’s… it’s unbelievably shocking to look at,” she admitted quietly.
“To be fair and honest about it, Miss Kryze, I was being obtuse, and trying to be polite, and I think we were quite beyond that, as lovers. I didn’t really know how to tell you that I found your stated beliefs and your words to be at complete odds with each other in a logical and rational sense, even to the point of hypocrisy. For my own part, my teacher was rather like that. Terrible hypocrite in his personal life, and entirely blind to it, at least he was at the time. And I was rather used to it. So, I might have been a great deal clearer in what I was trying to say, and you might have understood a great deal faster if I had, but I didn’t give you that opportunity, and that is on me.”
She nodded. “And yet, I don’t think it is your responsibility to tell me I’m being a hypocrite. I mean, it was your responsibility to keep me safe, and get me to the rendezvous point, and that was going remarkably successfully, though of course the entire thing has been utterly terrifying. I think it must be each person’s own responsibility to have integrity. To have the gap between what they do and what they say be an ever-closing space, rather than an ever-widening space. And those in positions of power are particularly in need of integrity, as their actions affect so many lives.”
She took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, Master Kenobi. I’m so sorry that I lacked integrity in my interactions with you. All sorts of interactions, I mean, not just the sex. We argued far more than we had sex, and it was shot through all the arguments.”
She said this to the hard packed ground beneath her shoes, but something in Obi-Wan’s chest began to heal with her words.
“I really had no idea just how violent I have been. And I do see it now, or I’m beginning to. I wish I could talk with Jon’s parent, the one he says is a pacifist, and try to understand how she does it, and particularly how she does it when people want to kill her, if that sort of thing happens to her, which, maybe it doesn’t. And honestly… I… I mean, I felt like I shouldn’t agree to… well, let me back up. Master Kenobi, this is a thing that is particularly difficult to admit to.”
“I shall employ my utmost in compassion. Please continue,” he reassured her.
She took a deep breath, and then another before going on. “Armor. I get it. I swear I do. The galaxy is so very dangerous. There are well-armed, and well-trained terrorists after us, and they steal children! I may not be their target kidnapping audience, but Bo-Katan is. They really would kill you as soon as look at you, that is a very well-established fact and only the Clan Head of Vizsla argues against it. But then I watch people who ‘just wear a little armor’, and what are they protecting? The top of their left shoulder? Their highly endangered forearms? It’s a ridiculous affectation- no. No, let me back up. I don’t see that it’s a rational use of armor as armor-as-protection. It’s a rational use of armor as armor-as-culture. But some sort of armored tunic and mask, with an armorweave robe over it, that makes perfect sense if you’re going to go armor-light in a dangerous galaxy. After all, it’s the head, spine, and torso that carry the most important bits that are hard, expensive, or impossible to replace. And it makes perfect sense for me that you, someone who has already or will in the future meet with armed darksiders or even Sith, it makes perfect sense that you would wear a gorget that specifically protects you from having your head chopped off. And even such protection over your arms and legs makes perfect sense, because of that particular technique you told me about that one time, where one’s opponent chops off one’s limbs off and then just walks away. Sensible, in a Jedi who is fighting all sorts of opponents. Me, I just want to wear armorweave, and maybe a mask or a helmet or something, but I had… oh, this is really hard to say, I had absorbed this mentality, that armor invites the fight. That if you’re armored like a traditional Mandalorian, then people will expect you to fight like one, and that you’ve subconsciously or unconsciously invited fights.”
Obi-Wan nodded.
“First, thank you for being brave and saying the difficult thing. I appreciate the courage you’ve brought to this conversation,” he said quietly. She nodded.
“Second, we can probably put you into contact with Fay, though whether she’ll have that conversation with you or not is entirely up to her, and honestly what the Force wills her to do.”
Satine nodded again, and murmured her thanks.
“Third, you know… Tenebre, my other parent here, he’s terrible at hand-to-hand, and he doesn’t bother wearing most armor anymore, partially because at his age the helmet irritates his horns. But he still fought Ruusan over the right to ask to adopt me, back when they hadn’t discussed anything with me about it and didn’t realize I’d choose them both. And he won. Not because he was actually good at it. And both he and Ruusan have a species-advantage in power, strength, and sturdiness that kind of cancel each other out. I think it was because, well, he thinks it was because Ruusan didn’t expect him to want it so much, so he was much more vicious from the start, even if he wasn’t technically as good at it as she is, and had zero intent to actually kill her, and he wasn’t even fully armored. He doesn’t have most of his armor anymore. He gave it back to the Forge and it’s been reforged for members of the younger generation. So, he won against a Togrutan Armorer without a helmet on. But he banked on the fact that she wouldn’t actually knock his head in with her hammer, and he took every advantage. And I suppose I’m saying this because here he is, a traditional-slash-reform Mandalorian and he doesn’t have half his armor, and he’s bad at hand-to-hand. Now, he’s brilliant at void battle, both strategy and tactics, and I needed intense training in that at one point, which is how we got to know one another. But… Mandalorians come in all flavors, all varieties, and abilities. And if the outside galaxy judges a Mandalorian based on helmet alone, that’s their loss. And there are two things to work around it: carry the helmet under your arm, or on your belt, or just wear it despite them.”
“I don’t think House Kryze even has an Armorer anymore,” she said.
“Easily solved,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “Talk to Ruusan before we leave. Point out the problem. Ask how it would traditionally be resolved. I’m sure she’ll be most ready to tell you how to acquire an Armorer for your House, when you return to it, and what it requires in terms of resources and responsibilities. And I recall your father wearing particularly beautiful vambraces, so there’s no reason you can’t have armor that works for your lifestyle, and your ambient threat level, and that also is lovely, and a delight to wear.”
She smiled at the ground.
“I also recognize,” she began quietly, “that there is a difference, perhaps, between an intent to kill, and an intent to… to stop. And that many things that could be used to kill, could also simply be used to stop. And some things can’t really be used to kill at all, but could be very good at stopping someone. I just… I can’t imagine getting training in using any of them from any traditional or reform minded Mandalorian and also being respected in not wanting to kill anyone.”
“Then perhaps it is time to think more widely about Mandalorians. Perhaps there are more ways to consider them outside of pacifist or warrior or terrorist. The Resol’nare talks about self-defence, not killing, and it’s not even implied that one needs to kill in order to defend oneself.”
She nodded and sighed and there was silence between them, again.
“I have something to say that is particularly difficult for me,” Obi-Wan said, changing the subject entirely, and taking his courage in both hands. He was bolstered by the fact that Satine had already done the same.
“I will listen with as much calm and compassion as I can,” Satine offered, quietly.
“There are things I didn’t know then, this year, about my own biology, that I know now. Arguably the people responsible for teaching me also didn’t know, or at least it was information that was kept from Qui-Gon, and he never did get curious about the ways in which I seemed different from his expectations of me. But, nevermind that for the moment. Anyway. I was raised to consider myself vaguely near Human, as most of the other near Humans that I knew of. It was something we had laughed about, in younger years, that no one who looked Human actually was 100% Human. But I’m not a hardy genetic mix like many of the near Humans I knew growing up. I’m 100% genetic Stewjoni, and that was kept from me for a long time. And pertinent to this conversation, Stewjoni are medically required to be on pheromone suppressants, and I wasn’t, after the second month on the run. I didn’t have any with me. I do now, of course, and I’ll be leaving some with you and Bo-Katan to please give to my younger self. He might have already gotten a shot and some refills where and when he was displaced, but I don’t want to chance it.”
“I… I’m trying to understand, Master Kenobi, but this… this doesn’t seem that bad. Unless the medical issue was really bothering you, and you didn’t mention it?”
Obi-Wan took a deep breath. “That wasn’t exactly the issue. I… I’m not sure how to delicately say this.”
“Then just say it,” she offered quietly.
“Unsuppressed, Stewjoni pheromone can affect certain species, including yours, and partially or completely compromise the other’s capacity to consent to sexual encounters. If a person is vaguely compatible, which really means that they like the way a Stewjoni smells, then, yes. Yes. It… our… none of our sexual encounters were things you could actually say no to.”
Satine burst out laughing.
Obi-Wan took very deep breaths and offloaded his emotion to the Force, which took it without judgment. Which was nice that at least someone around here wasn’t judging him, though laughter wasn’t what he thought might be coming.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she said, wheezing and trying to catch her breath.
Obi-Wan continued to breathe deeply, and offload negative emotion.
“Oh, Master Kenobi. I’m so sorry. You see… I… I didn’t want to be rude. I mean, body odor is such an intensely personal thing, and we were on the run, and you were always, always deferring to me, making sure Bo-Katan and I had the opportunity to bathe and refresh ourselves first, and eat and drink first, I never wanted to mention, and I just… I just thought you, oh this is going to sound terrible, but I just thought you were a gross boy, but… I couldn’t stand your smell. It was… I mean, it’s not that bad now, and especially now that we’re not intimate I can barely smell you at all, but then? Oh, it was just awful!”
Obi-Wan blinked and recalibrated.
And the shame was… entirely gone.
“Oh. Well. Then. I suppose it was actually a miracle of the Force that we had any sex at all, really.”
She laughed, and it was a welcome sound. “I wouldn’t go quite that far. I did abuse my power in the situation, and I was a terrible hypocrite in general. But… but thank you. Thank you for telling me. I… that must have been horrible to find out about, and think that you had subsumed my will, or something.”
“Indeed,” Obi-Wan said ruefully, and this time the space between them was comfortable, again.
“Is it too much to ask… about your current beloveds? I take it they are both Mandalorian,” she said, gesturing to his shins. “How did you meet?”
Obi-Wan smiled slightly. “It was a mission. The one after this one. I was sent to rescue one of them, the other was presumed dead. I rescued both of them. They tricked me into courting them, actually, but then once I meditated on it, the Force said this was the right way forward. Wasn’t allowed to marry until I was twenty-five, though. Quite a bit of healing to do, and they had things to do as well, so that worked out. I mean, they’re already married to each other, but they’re both engaged to me. Still not twenty-five, so, still not married. But they’re quite good for me, and I like to think I’m good for them, too.”
Satine sighed, but it was a pleasant sound. “That sounds absolutely lovely. I wish you all happiness with them, Master Kenobi.”
Obi-Wan smiled and for the first time in the conversation, met her eye. “I’ll hold you to that, Miss Kryze. You’ll have a lot of responsibility when this is all over. A lot of things to sort out. This means no writing to me and implying I should get rid of Jango Fett because you find him politically inconvenient.”
She gave him a look askance. “But Jango Fett is dea--” She cut herself off. And in an even quieter voice, added, “He’s not dead, is he?”
Obi-Wan held her shocked gaze and gave her a very subtle head shake.
She stared at his greaves. She stared at his greaves for a long, long moment in silence.
“You’re engaged to the Mand’alor?” she hissed.
A shit-eating grin crept over his face. “And the Rid’alor,” he added. “And they like how I smell.”
She snorted just slightly. “Good for them.” Then she sighed. “Oh, Jango. I knew him, you know. As a child. I found him desperately annoying.”
“I understand it’s quite mutual,” Obi-Wan confided.
Satine laughed a little, just a small chuckle. “I’m sure,” she agreed with a smile. “His father, may he rest in peace, he was a good man. He knew what he was talking about. My father always respected him. Jango… he’s such a hothead.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “Yes, I understand he was. And still can be. And also, he’s worked hard to moderate that. Just as you are now trying to moderate your worst tendencies. And he’s got people around him to help him moderate that, which I think is good, in a leader. Know your shortcomings, and surround yourself not with people who will agree with you, but those who will round out your abilities and moderate your worst tendencies. Beware of the people who just agree with you. They’re either brainless, or they’ve got a hidden agenda,” Obi-Wan warned.
“Hmm,” Satine murmured, and Obi-Wan let her consider his words.
“Well,” she eventually said, “you’ve given me a second chance. I can certainly give Jango one. I suppose we’re all allowed to grow up and grow wiser while we do it. He treats you okay? Him and his spouse?”
Obi-Wan smiled. “He does. They both do,” he assured her.
She nodded silently.
“You did get a new teacher, didn’t you? You didn’t have to stick with Master Jinn if he was treating you so badly, did you?”
Obi-Wan sighed. “I did. And to be fair, it was mostly neglect, though I have come to see just how harmful neglect can truly be.”
“You look good,” she said. “And I mean that in an entirely platonic way. You look… you look healthy.”
“I am, though it took a while to get there.”
“I hope he can get a new teacher, too, when the mission is over, I mean.”
“I hope you will feel comfortable telling him that,” Obi-Wan said. “He’ll need to hear it from several different people for it to really sink in, and maybe he’s getting that right now, and maybe he’s not. Difficult to know for certain.”
“The Force doesn’t tell you?” she asked.
Obi-Wan shrugged. “If I calm down enough and can clear my heart, and have the safety to very deeply meditate on the question, it might tell me, but I haven’t yet. Since I have that safety here, though, perhaps I will.”
“I know I don’t get a vote, but I think you should.”
Obi-Wan smiled, and his heart was at peace. “Since I respect the opinions of my friends, I shall.”
She looked him in the eye, again. “I’m glad we can be friends, Master Kenobi. I think… I think I’ll probably be having this conversation again… sometime after you leave, but I think… I think it will be easier the second time around. And I’ll certainly be able to initiate it. You’ve done me a great service. Thank you.”
Obi-Wan nodded his head deeply, and put his fist against his heart. “It is my honor, and my duty. There is no debt, Duchess Kryze.”
A hitching breath.
He shouldn’t have called her that, but he knew her father was already dead, even if she didn’t have confirmation of it, yet.
“Hell. I really have abused my power. With him. With you. Gods, Ben, I’m so sorry.”
“This debt, I accept. I only require that you do better from here on out. Do so, and consider it paid, and your honor restored.”
“I will repay,” she said, her voice soft but urgent, her own right fist on her heart, and her head bowed.
“I know you never had a traditional verd’goten. But I think this would count as a verd’goten of the soul. We can talk about it with Ruusan, if you like. Because perhaps the way you are a warrior for your people could be using words, rather than a flamethrower. Perhaps that is the way you could bridge the gap between the pacifist faction and the reform faction. And it would certainly gain you the respect of the traditional clans, as well.”
“Verd’goten of the soul. I… I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
“Warriors are birthed in all sorts of ways.”
“I… I think I would like to speak with the Armorer. About… about many things. I’ll let you know if she wants to verify things with you.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “Then I believe our conversation has drawn to a close. She’s in the Forge right now, if you’re feeling brave.”
Satine took a clearly bracing breath. “Well. It can’t be worse than it was. And she probably won’t kill me. So… this is fine.”
And as the young Clan Head straightened her spine and walked away toward the Forge, Obi-Wan realized that they really did have quite a lot in common.
They’d just never acknowledged it.