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It was moving day!
Bant and Reeft had offered to help, but honestly, Obi-Wan didn’t have so many possessions, and there was something in him that just wanted to… be alone a bit while he did this, so he invited them over to join him for latemeal, instead. Which he would be ordering from the kitchens.
But still.
After meditation, firstmeal, and his second mind healing session, where blessedly he and his mind healer still did nothing but get to know each other and play some gentle word association games, Obi-Wan went to the Quartermaster to request three empty crates, one for all the furnishings he’d taken for his dorm that he wouldn’t have a use for in his more permanent quarters assignment, and two for the items he did want and need to move, everything from the armor stands down to his quality tea stash.
The things he didn’t plan to take with him were easiest, or so he thought.
Into the crate went the two dining tables.
Into the crate went the thirteen seating cushions.
And then Obi-Wan grabbed his meditation cushion and was about to put it in the crate when a feeling of wrongness passed over him.
But he had a karyai.
He had two karyai. Three, even, if one counted the empty guest room that would not be occupied by a padawan any time soon because Obi-Wan himself needed to finish growing up, thank you very much.
…but he only sometimes preferred to sit in the karyai to meditate. Sometimes… sometimes he liked sitting on just a plain meditation cushion on the floor. It was… familiar.
No. No. It was entirely too frivolous to have two entire fortified pillow pits and a personal meditation cushion.
He moved to put the cushion in the crate.
Wrongness. No. Stop.
“What the hell?!” Obi-Wan cried aloud. “It’s a meditation cushion!!” he yelled, looking around his dorm suite as if he could pinpoint the exact location of the bit of the Force he was yelling at. As if it worked like that.
Then he calmed down. He put the meditation cushion down and plopped down on it. He cleared his mind intentionally before he dropped into meditation with the hopes that it would just go faster that way, and it was… remarkably comfortable, cozy, and familiar to be sitting on a mediation cushion, meditating.
All he needed was a blanket, really. Peak coziness, meditation with a blanket.
See? Keep the cushion.
He could hear the Force with remarkable clarity, when he tethered. It was still damnibly difficult on Coruscant, otherwise. Which got him to thinking…
Yes, the Force answered. One thousand twenty-five of them, the Force said when Obi-Wan asked if there were, perhaps, other Sith Shrines on the planet. Somewhere. You know. Occluding discernment.
Obi-Wan gave his total shock and overwhelment to the Force and pulled himself out of the meditation.
He was not going to panic this time. He wasn’t. Last week’s showing on the matter was… not his best moment, and it was quite embarrassingly in front of his entire Mandalorian family, and at the very least, he would do better this time.
He lowered his shields a bit, took some very deep breaths, and tugged ever-so-slightly on his bond with Plo’buir.
He got a light tug back, and a little wave of love.
Obi-Wan did the mental equivalent of politely clearing his throat.
‘Yes, Obi-Wan? What is it?’
Obi-Wan replied calmly. Completely calmly. He did not scream down their bond, like last time. He did not shove his disordered thoughts at his Jedi parent. No. None of that. This was the new-and-improved Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he was fully a knight now, and he wasn’t going to panic about these sorts of things anymore.
‘Terribly sorry to interrupt, Plo’buir, but I just thought you’d like to know that discernment is still a bit tricky on Coruscant because there are another one thousand, twenty-five extant Sith Shrines.’
‘WHAT?’
‘Come to think of it, I didn’t ask about anything larger or smaller than a shrine, but I imagine a full Sith Temple would also make things quite bleak, plus any other, perhaps smaller but potentially powerful artifacts. Sith went in for ritual bits and pieces, didn’t they?’
‘GO AND ASK, OBI-WAN!’
‘Right, yes. Going, going,’ Obi-Wan said calmly, and closed the connection a bit before shifting his focus and attention, taking some more deep breaths, tethering and flinging himself into the Great Beyond.
Yes. There are many.
Okay, but how many was many?
Two million, three hundred forty-two thousand, eight hundred ninety-two.
That was quite possibly several tons of Sith artefacts. Right. And he was never going to be able to spontaneously remember that number.
Obi-Wan tethered to Plo’buir, still meditating. ‘Plo’buir, can you hear me like this?’
‘OF COURSE I CAN, WHAT WAS THE ANSWER, CHILD?!’
Obi-Wan asked the Force to repeat the number of Sith Artefacts on Coruscant. It did so.
‘Did you catch that? I’m terrible at numbers, is the thing.’
Plo’buir started swearing in Shryiiwook, and he started swearing really quite creatively. In the midst of it all, Obi-Wan was pretty sure he heard a request for verification of any possible Sith Temples.
Obi-Wan asked.
Five. Equidistant from each other.
Obi-Wan asked where they were.
You’re not ready to know, yet. Ready yourselves, and then ask.
‘Right. And there we are. I don’t suppose I could come along and help with the temples, could I?’
‘ABSOLUTELY NOT!’
And then the connection slammed shut, and it was just as well that Obi-Wan was floating in the peaceful, joyful serenity of oneness with the Force, because that was just a bit abrupt.
But, the meditation cushion definitely stayed. That was the upshot that he took out of the experience, and he floated quite delighted with life, and meditation cushions, for just a bit longer before he went back to packing up his possessions.
The crate to go back to the quartermaster was full! Huzzah!
Well, technically it was overflowing, a bit, with the tables sticking out, but that was fine, really.
Obi-Wan carefully put his folded screens in one of the empty crates, then his watercolor, wrapped in his tapestry. He rolled up his rugs and fitted the rolls carefully in the crate, and then thought better of it and put them in the other, still empty crate.
And then Obi-Wan realized his bed linens and pillows would need to go back to the Quartermaster, if not the blankets.
He stripped the bed and pillows and tossed the linens into the sonic for a quick cycle, and then hesitated to put his bed pillows into the crate to go back to the quartermaster.
He liked his bed pillows. Would it be… awkward? To have them in his karyai in his private room?
His gunship didn’t have such pillows, outside of the rackroom.
And come to think of it, after the first marathon session of sex with his beloveds… Obi-Wan had nipped to the rackroom to steal the pillows for sleep, even if he did put them back during the day, when the karyai was made up with the table.
Fuck it.
He was bringing the pillows.
If they didn’t work out, he could always give them back to the Quartermaster sometime next week, or next month, or whenever Jango admitted to him that he was being thoroughly unMandalorian and shouldn’t use Core-centric bed pillows in a karyai.
This was fine.
He pulled the extra set of linens from his bottom drawer and put them on top of the dining cushions, minus the pillowcases, which he put on his dresser for now.
Obi-Wan grabbed the kneeling desk he had decided to keep for Jas’buir, with the dedicated datapad, input device, and secondary commlink (no kneeling pillow necessary for a ghost), and put the desk at the bottom of the folding screen crate and then put the technology in one of his clean pillowcases and wrapped it securely. Then he grabbed his large and small armorweave bags and went to clean out the refresher. All the bits and bobs stashed in the wall shelving unit went into the smaller bags, the towels (now all clean) went folded into the larger bag, and he did a complete check through everything three times (except the clothes sonic, which was running), and then put all the small bags into the large bag, and popped it into the crate on top of the kneeling desk.
Blankets for the bed, and his fuzzy blue blanket for meditating on top of the towels, and then his meditation cushion on top of that!
He wasn’t wearing all of his armor and weapons, but he’d need to pack up his armor stands, so he went ahead and put it all on, save his helmet, which he put on his low dresser. The armor stands went into the crate with the rolled up rugs. In went the oxygen tanks large and small, and his face mask that he could shove a straw into so he could have tea and latemeal with Plo’buir.
He looked around his rooms and realized there were still pictures on the walls.
Into the crate! And the removable, reusable hanging pegs, too!
Right!
Personal items, and then pantry and kitchen things, and then he’d be done!
Obi-Wan had had a massive cleanout of things when he’d moved out of QGJ’s apartment before he left for his first (intentional) solo mission, and so there weren’t so many things.
But of course he had acquired one or two things since then.
He grabbed his mission bag and his smaller satchel and the other clean pillow cases and started packing up the smaller personal items like his datapad and input device, the dataclips and few other datapads he didn’t carry around with him so often, the flimsi book of faerie tales and drunken songs, his sewing kit, and put them all in his smaller satchel. The giant glowing dildo from Siri (plus glowing stand) he unplugged and put in his mission bag, along with the set of training dice and cards he’d gotten years ago and still liked to play with, occasionally, when he was alone.
Then it was clothes, which were easy enough and his extra sets and pajamas got shoved into a pillow case and it was all popped into the crate.
Until something clunked out onto the floor.
Obi-Wan blinked at the rock.
Oh.
He started to tear up and then berated himself.
It’s just a rock, Obi-Wan. It’s just a Force-Sensitive rock. It doesn’t matter. Just pack it, he told himself sternly, but when he went to take it up in his hand, a wave of sadness came from it.
Obi-Wan startled hard and snatched his hand back.
That rock had saved his life, once. He should keep it. He should honor what it offered him when he was in the process of having his mind erased. He should honor the fact that it grounded him, reminded him of who he was, when he needed it most.
At the time, he’d thought that it was like having a little piece of Qui-Gon right there with him…
But now…
Now, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but notice…
It wasn’t actually a little piece of Qui-Gon. And Qui-Gon hadn’t been there. It wasn’t Qui-Gon who had saved him in that moment.
It was a rock.
Admittedly, a Force-Sensitive rock, and one that Qui-Gon had given him for his thirteenth birthday.
(Bant’s master had taken her out to have a fun, safe adventure, and then ice cream after her thirteenth birthday. They’d gone rock climbing and then cliff-diving on one of Coruscant’s moons. Garen’s master had taken him out to see a nebula in Wildspace that Exploracorps was working on charting. Quinlan was on a mission for his thirteenth birthday, and then his celebration got postponed when he sassed a master in front of Tholme and he had punishment archive duty, but eventually Quinlan got two concert tickets and a new psychometry recovery bead Tholme had commissioned for him. Reeft got to attend a special lecture on Alderaan with his master for his thirteenth birthday. Thirteen was a really important birthday for a Jedi in the Temple.)
Obi-Wan got a rock. A rock, and a pat on the shoulder.
A rock that saved his life.
A rock that needed to be the one to save his life because, yet again, Qui-Gon wasn’t there.
Obi-Wan sat down next to the rock and cried.
The rock was crying, too, but finally Obi-Wan imagined that perhaps he knew why.
It was clearly far too early to pack the meditation cushion.
Obi-Wan pulled it out and sat down heavily on it, cleared his mind, gave his turmoil to the Force and sunk down into meditation.
Again.
He tethered himself and then threw himself into the Vast Oneness, and stars, it did feel better to just give everything to the Force!
He asked the Force what in the galaxy he was meant to do with the rock.
Thank it, Beloved One. Tell it you are passing it on. Tell it to wait for the perfect child. Then put it in the Bear Clan Treehouse and say goodbye.
Obi-Wan stayed tethered and floating in the kindness and gentleness of the Force for a while longer after that.
Meditation done (but cushion remaining out), Obi-Wan thanked the rock and told it what the Force had said to do. The rock instantly quieted and let itself be picked up without a fuss.
Obi-Wan wrapped shadows fully and completely, to the highest level, around himself and the rock and calmly walked out of his dorm room. It was a twenty-minute walk to the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and another ten minute walk to the Bear Clan Treehouse.
It had a someone in there, but not a member of his own generation of Bear Clan, and a new generation hadn’t yet taken the name.
Ah. Grogu had escaped the creche again.
Obi-Wan climbed in the treehouse, but not with utter silence. Grogu’s left ear twitched and he made an adorable inquisitive noise.
Fuck it.
He unwrapped shadows around himself, but not the rock, then grinned at Grogu. “I found you!”
Obi-Wan reached out and tickled the crecheling who was in years older than him, but in terms of standard development, was still a rather precocious six month old. Ish.
He fully climbed into the treehouse then grabbed up the crecheling and settled him on his hip. He quietly put the rock down on a high shelf, toward the back and said goodbye to it, keeping it wrapped in shadows.
A tiny wave of love splashed back at him.
Obi-Wan blinked hard and grinned at Grogu, who cooed at him.
Obi-Wan went face first in Grogu’s tummy, making nommy noises to hide his tears, and Grogu giggled and sent mental images of being tossed in the air.
“You got it, little one!”
Obi-Wan scooped him up and jumped out of the treehouse, swallowing back tears and smiling. His shields were locked down hard around his emotions, but not so tight in general he couldn’t talk with Grogu, who was otherwise nonverbal.
Obi-Wan happily tossed Grogu in the air and caught him as he laughed and giggled and shrieked for joy, all the way through the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and all the way back to the Creche. Whereupon he got roped into some fingerpainting and somehow ended up with glitter in his hair before he could drag himself away, two hours before midmeal, his heart feeling monumentally lighter.
And the rock was taken care of, at least.
Shedding glitter just slightly, though not for the first time in these rooms, really, Obi-Wan got back to his dorm room and assessed the situation.
Right.
Right.
He pulled the bed sheets out of the sonic, folded them up and popped everything but the pillow cases into ‘back to the quartermaster’s’ crate. He double checked the refresher - totally empty of his stuff - and double checked his wardrobe, low dresser, and bedside table. Two out of three were empty, so Obi-Wan cleaned out the table of the sex rags and lube, found his toiletries pillow case and put them in there.
Only the kitchen remained.
He took out his travel tea set and his stay at home tea set, and put them back in their bag. He carefully wrapped up his shig set that his buir’e had given him in his clean towels and started placing all of his kitchen items, minus the food, in the crates, in and amongst the pillows and blankets for padding. Cups, bowls, chopsticks and the whole works. The tacky tray from Takodana, plus all the commemorative shot glasses were duly wrapped and stowed.
Obi-Wan started clearing out his pantry, putting all his snacks and quick-hot rations and his tea stash in the crates, and then double checked that he’d cleaned out absolutely everything but what was in the conservator.
He had.
Obi-Wan sighed, looked around his dorm room with a little smile and took the quartermaster’s crate back to the quartermaster.
It was not a particularly long walk, and its true that he could have sent a message and had a warehouse droid come and pick the crate up from outside his dorm room, but this somehow felt better. It felt like tying up loose ends after a mission. QGJ would always just leave as soon as possible, only saying a proper farewell occasionally and using some sort of metric Obi-Wan could never quite follow. This felt like… taking responsibility. In a very small way, to be sure. But these were the things that he and his family had used and used well. Obi-Wan was grateful and didn’t want to treat those things in any way disrespectfully.
He dropped them off with the droid who was indicated, thanked the padawan and droid, and then said a quiet thank you and goodbye to those goods he no longer required.
When he walked away empty handed, it felt good.
Obi-Wan packed up the items in his conservator, popped his meditation pillow and helmet on top, remembered at the last moment to grab Jango’s Required Plant, the small pretty orchid, locked the crates together and pushed them out the door. He came back in briefly, into the empty dorm room with glitter on the floor and looked around. He smiled.
Obi-Wan bowed deeply to the room and left. He took his nameplate from the slide-in spot and recoded the door lock back to null, then pushed his two locked crates with all the possessions that could be called his outside of his gunship, and walked through the halls until he got to the bank of slightly larger lifts that were near the quartermaster’s warehouse, and thus just easier to transport two locked-together crates in.
He took the lift to the floor slightly lower than his former dorm, and navigated to the corridor that his new room was in, right next to Jon’s room.
Ah.
His nameplate was already there, except this one said ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi, Knight’.
Obi-Wan took a deep breath and stared at that.
Knight.
He really was a Knight.
He’d made it.
How many times had he been forced to choose against this path? Or so it seemed? And each time, he ended up… not choosing to be a Knight sometime in the future, but, as others have said, choosing to do the work of a Jedi Knight presently, without the recognition.
But the recognition was really nice.
He coded into the room, then changed the doorcode to ASWAD and pushed his crates in.
Dear sweet stars, the rooms were just huge.
Was that just in comparison to his padawan dorm?
Was it because having a large karyai that combined sitting and dining left a whole lot of open space left over?
The rooms were just…
They were huge.
He left the crates near the door and peeked into the two private rooms. Previously he would have called them the bedrooms, but there were no beds to be found.
No.
Certainly not.
That room was hell and gone larger than his had been in QGJ’s apartment.
Obi-Wan went back out into the main room and looked around. Then he squinted, and imagined that old, ratty sofa, and the single chair with the low table before them. And the dining table and chairs.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
His rooms were far larger. With less in them.
He had come in with his family while the rooms were under construction to have a look around, and they had, and it had been quite fun, but with the rooms finished, if empty, it was…
It was like walking into Getal’ika for the first time.
A place, just for him.
A place that was perfect, and all for him.
Obi-Wan was tearing up and he wasn’t at all sure why.
“Fuck it,” he muttered. “Better out than in.”
He blinked hard and sniffed a bit, then wondered where all his stuff was going to go.
Well.
Kitchen first. That was easy.
Except it wasn’t just a little kitchenette pod. It was a full kitchen. He put his few dishes away, his conservator items, his pantry items, but left out his tea set and his canister and filled up the hydroheater. He wasn’t ready to sit down and drink some tea, though it was the midmeal hour, he also wanted to get a start on putting everything away before he sat down and ate something.
As he was putting his things away, he considered his situation. QGJ was a terrible cook. What lineage recipes others learned so they could pass them down did not exist while he’d been QGJ’s student.
But Obi-Wan wondered how hard it would be to learn to cook. There were lessons for that, just like any other interest. He could learn.
And then he thought of maybe hosting a lineage dinner. He glanced over at his very large main karyai which would fit everyone easily.
How utterly lovely that would be!
Yes. Yes. He had downtime. It didn’t all need to be Soresu and esoteric skills training.
Except that cooking was just about as esoteric to Obi-Wan as teleportation.
He snorted and wondered if Jon could cook. He’d need to ask. Maybe they could learn to cook together.
Kitchen sorted, Obi-Wan turned to his personal items, and the sorts of things that would be stored in the refresher and his private room. He started putting them away.
His private room had a wardrobe and a low dresser, and a mid-sized karyai dominating the center of the room, though there was plenty of room to walk around it and even put things, should he discover other things he needed in his rooms.
Right! A weapons locker!
And possibly more than one, for when Jango and Myles came to visit him.
And if his future padawan was going to be a Mandalorian, they would need a weapons locker, too.
He looked around and squinted and wondered where such things would go.
Hmm.
He had three armor stands. He needed one more of those for the guest room. He needed another low dresser for his beloveds to share. He needed three weapons lockers, one for the guest room and two for here, and they could be mounted over the dressers, that would work.
Obi-Wan shifted his low dresser away from the wardrobe, and then thought better of it, and swapped position of the wardrobe and the low dresser.
He could have the two low dressers flanking the wardrobe, with armor stands between, and then the third armor stand on the other side of their shared dresser.
Yes.
That would work.
He brought the armor stands in, arranged them, and then started putting his clothes away.
Oh!
There was nowhere to charge his tech. Charge spots had been included in his dorm room, but he’d have to create them, here.
Right, one for each armor stand for the helmets and comms embedded in vambraces, and then one for each low dresser in both rooms, then one in the kitchen and one near the back of the main karyai.
And one for Jas’buir’s desk, wherever that was going to be.
Right, right.
Obi-Wan pulled out the oxygen tank set up and put it in a corner of his room.
Boot mats!
It was polite to put out boot mats near karyais!
He finished putting things away and then there was nothing for it. It was time to tackle the main room.
Obi-Wan pulled out the large watercolor, and the small photos that Bant had framed for him, and the tapestry and the rugs and the folding screens and the kneeling desk and the pouf chairs (all the extra bed pillows were in an unceremonious heap in his private karyai just now) and wondered how in hell he was supposed to arrange it all.
Ill’buir would know what to do.
On a whim, he called her. Just to see if maybe she was miraculously available.
She was!
“Obi-Wan? What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“Oh, thank the stars, you picked up. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No, not at all, what’s going on?”
He sighed. “I just moved into my new quarters and it wasn’t tough to unload the kitchen things, or even move things about a bit and see what was lacking in the private rooms, but I’m just at a loss in the main room. Do you have time to help?”
She smiled widely at him and they discussed the issue, all the items to hand, and Obi-Wan adjusted his comm cam to a wide spread as they continued to talk.
Leaving the comm on the kitchen counter for now, he started moving things about.
Folding screens near the door. Not so close you couldn’t maneuver a crate easily around them, but also effectively creating a controlled entrance area. When you opened the door from the hallway, you didn’t see into the main room, or even were able to glance to the right into the kitchen. One folding screen blocked off direct access to the kitchen, and the other met it and funneled you off to the left.
That would be a perfect place for people to leave cloaks and hoods, she pointed out, if there were a rack or stand, or a set of shelves with hooks underneath them, and it would be a good place for the bootmats for the karyai, as well.
Obi-Wan added more to his mental list for the quartermaster and then spent the next three minutes minutely adjusting the screens until they were perfect and just-so.
“Do I just give the rugs back?” he asked.
“No, not at all. Think about where you might want to meditate.”
“Oh. I thought I would do that in my private room.”
“Yes, perhaps sometimes. But what if Plo’buir comes over, or one of your friends, or your lineage sister? You’ll want a meditation spot out in the main room, too.”
Obi-Wan had a moment of internal flailing. Was he allowed to have two different dedicated spots for meditating?!?
“That… seems decadent,” he said softly.
“Obi-Wan. You spend a lot of hours meditating, and you should. It’s really okay. Would you drink brandy out of a red wine glass, if you could have both? Would you drink tea out of a shot glass? I know you have both of those.”
Obi-Wan snorted and thought about it, then nodded. Right. Right. More meditation cushions.
He could also meditate in the karyai if he wanted to. And, he could meditate right there.
In the wide open space between the main karyai and the private rooms, Obi-Wan unrolled the rug that had been underneath his bed.
Hmm.
Four meditation cushions around a low table, perhaps. Big enough for a tea tray. But it’s also where Jango’s Required Plant could live.
He shared his idea with Ill’buir, who loved it, and he went ahead and put the plant in the center of the rug as a sort of place holder.
Then they decided the other rug could go on the far side of the karyai, in the corner, a bit. He put Jas’buir’s desk there, and his technology, and then the two pouf chairs on the other side, for when he or anyone else needed to flop and didn’t want to take their boots off.
“I know there is storage in the karyai, but I find it convenient to have a low set of shelves near it. Kal and Myles always put weapons in the hidden storage anyway, and it is the best spot for extra linens and blankets, and even the flufflier pillows for the night. But I like to have the games and datapads and sex supplies and other momentos not hiding behind a cushion, you know?”
Obi-Wan nodded and thought about it. He hadn’t figured out a place for his giant glowing dildo, yet, and that would be a good one.
He added three low sets of shelves to his mental list for the quartermaster.
Illipi advised him on where to hang the watercolor, tapestry, and photos of his friends. He mused aloud as he did so that there were more photos he needed to have framed, to add to his little rogue’s gallery of loved ones.
It was shocking, really, how many people loved him.
The next time he went to Dex’s, he’d have to get a picture. Oo! He could take Jon to Dex’s!
Perfect.
And then he was as done as he could be, without another trip to the quartermaster, and it was… it was really quite lovely, if a bit big.
He fixed himself a bit of midmeal as he continued to chat with Ill’buir and then pulled his boots off, went and hung his kama and sleeves on his armor rack, and ate his midmeal with one of his parents in his brand new karyai.
Just as well he hadn’t moved as soon as his family had left, and waited two days. He never would have figured out the thing with the rugs and the folding screens alone.
Obi-Wan collapsed his empty crates down and brought his old nameplate and the crates to the Quartermaster’s domain and explained what he thought he might need, and that he was out of his dorm room and it was ready to be cleaned.
He described the weapons locker and indicated where he wanted them installed, and for the rest he was let loose with two crates and a droid into the warehouse to get what he needed.
Which, in addition to everything else, also extra towels for the refresher, towels and napkins for the kitchen, and the particular kind of bedroll and sheets that worked in a karyai. He got two sets for each one, and then extra bed pillows and pillow cases, now that he knew where those disappeared to in the daytime!
He also got some pretty frames for the pictures he would have nicely printed at the printshop in the studio area of the Temple for his twelve best pictures of his family and friends.
And then he and the droid and their crates went to the game section. Other masters and their padawans had games in their quarters, and there were several that Obi-Wan enjoyed, but QGJ had never been remotely interested in such things and Obi-Wan hadn’t dared to ask. But even the games where probability allowed for rampant cheating could be great fun, because if you can’t cheat convincingly, you can’t cheat. He got some dice games and some strategy games (Jango and Myles loved dejarik, and had taught him how to play) and the pair of flora and fauna games he’d always had fun playing (will you accidentally poison your mission partners by serving the wrong vegetable during a forage? Maybe!), and finally, his beloved Spscrabble.
He’d always loved that game.
By the time he brought back all his new goods, a maintenance droid was just leaving, having already installed the weapons lockers.
Obi-Wan took his time putting things away and throwing part of all the new linens in the clothes sonic for a quick cycle. He hummed to himself, and wondered how Kal’buir was getting on with his new flute. He ought to have asked Illipi when he had her on the comm.
It took a bit of time to set up all the charging stations, and arrange things just-so, but it was worth it and Obi-Wan rewarded himself with a packet of just the most amazing fish snacks, which got him to thinking about his pantry situation.
He returned the crates to the quartermaster and sought out the nearest pantry room to stock back up on the good snacks, and as he was grabbing yet another case of single-use nutrient water packs, he wondered…
His gunship had a dispenser for nutrient water, and one just upended a refillable five gallon jug into it.
…could he have one of those for his kitchen?
His kneejerk reaction was to say that it was entirely too frivolous. Then he looked at the case of single use nutrient water packs.
Was it really frivolous to have a stand to use refillable jugs, rather than go through all of this, only half of which is recyclable?
He put the case of packs back, grabbed the rest of his snacks and went… back to the quartermasters.
They would install a dispenser on the end of his kitchen island within the hour, and he could order the jugs from the kitchen, which he planned to do with his latemeal order.
He put his pantry items away and then grabbed his dataclip and went to the printshop. A droid walked him through what he needed to do and an hour later Obi-Wan was walking away with twelve of the most gorgeous pictures!
The one of Plo’buir, with the tea on his arms, from when they were little.
The one of Jango reading his book of faerie tales and drunken songs, laying back in Getal’ika’s karyai.
One of Jango and Myles kissing, sweetly.
A picture of all his Aswad cousins.
A picture of Ruus’buir and Tan’ika in the Forge.
A picture of Obi-Wan and Tenebre in one of the massive Aswad karyais.
A picture of Obi-Wan, Feemor, Yi, Jia, Plo’buir, and T’ra Saa; his new lineage.
A picture of Jon Antilles, terrifying badass, covered in small semi-armored children; everyone is laughing, including Master Fay, just visible in the background.
A posed picture of Kal and Illipi, where he’s standing behind her, towering over her, with his arms around her center, and her hands are laying gently on his vambraces. He’s scowling. She’s smiling. It’s perfect.
A posed picture of the three engaged beloveds, helmets on, greaves swapped.
A very posed picture of Jas’buir fully corporeal, his arm slung around his son’s shoulders, both helmets below their other arms. Jango looked both on the verge of laughter and tears.
A picture taken just after his knighting ceremony of his family, his lineage, and his friends, with Jas’buir not quite fully corporeal, but more than just a blue static blur, and everyone smiling widely, even Kal, even Ruusan.
Twelve perfect pictures of the people whom he loved.
Obi-Wan had ordered latemeal and two nutrient water jugs, made himself some tea and meditated a bit. He had some emotional settling to do, and he was also quite curious about this darkness-on-Coruscant issue.
It happened that he had to come in and out of the meditation quite frequently, once he finished up his personal work, and he was taking notes on a datapad.
He’d pinpointed the location of the five Sith Temples. (Five seemed like a bit of overkill, honestly. And why five?) He’d figured out that many of the artefacts were in dropped caches, actually in crates, though heavily secured, otherwise. Once one dealt with the heavy security, they were actually already crated up, and the Force recommended simply dropping the crates into Coruscant Prime, which was something that Obi-Wan earmarked for asking Tenebre about… because how exactly did one ‘drop’ a crate (or anything) into a star? Possibly Jon could teleport it close enough to the gravity well to let gravity just take over… that would probably work…
When Obi-Wan had finished that, he asked ‘okay, what else?’ to the Force, and that was fascinating.
The Sith Temples had to be dealt with in a specific order, and in tandem with a specific order of the dropped crate caches, and the entire thing was like… a puzzle box.
Was it cheating to just ask the Force for the solution?
But without doing that, one risked insanity, and insanity was the best possible of the non-preferred outcomes.
No.
Cheating was called for, here, as in Sabaac and all dice games. Cheating was definitely called for.
Obi-Wan continued to go back and forth between the tethering meditation and taking his notes until he was finally done.
Then he asked one more question.
Is there anything else we really ought to know before we start dealing with all of this Sith stuff?
And then the Force was quite explicit about that, too, and Obi-Wan was so very glad he was cheating.
Dear Plo’buir,
I’m so sorry that I just dumped things on you earlier. I really thought I’d done a bit better job explaining it all this time, compared to last time when I just emotionally vomited all over you, but I think perhaps this letter will serve even better. See? I’m learning!
Still so much to learn.
So, I have consulted the Force, asked a few more pointed questions, taken a lot of notes, and then remembered to ask for ever greater clarity, and I’m certainly glad I have done so. It’s all attached, and I think it’s fairly complete as descriptions go.
I do hope you will reconsider and allow me to help a bit. The job is quite large and will likely take some time. If it’s the mandatory rest time after a shadow mission, well, I do understand, but I’m nearly halfway through that.
In other news, I’ve moved into my new quarters, same entry code.
May the Force be with you always.
Obi-Wan
Attachment
Obi-Wan signed up for a cooking course. He did this just before his door chime sounded, though it was a bit early for the latemeal delivery, his friends might be just a tad early. He got up and padded to the door to open it.
It was Plo’buir, who pushed a thread of contrition over their bond.
Obi-Wan invited him in and offered tea, but Plo’buir declined, so they just sat in the karyai.
“My dear Obi-Wan, I am terribly sorry for my highly emotional response this morning. That was entirely my own fault and truly had nothing at all to do with you.”
Obi-Wan was just left blinking in something… something perhaps just adjacent to disbelief.
Master Plo was apologizing?
To him?
Did masters do that?
“Um, yes. Of course. Not… not a problem,” Obi-Wan said, floundering a bit.
“You see, we had been warned. Not only by your visions. And it was something of a joke, though not a very funny one seen in hindsight. Centuries ago, nearly a full millennia, Master Fay warned us that Coruscant was getting darker, and oh, I’ve looked up the notes from that meeting of the High Council.” He shook his head. “She was entirely right, and the High Council just… just vilified her, blamed her, accused her of being angry and bitter, and… it’s… it’s all quite shocking really. Fay was entirely right. And now we know the exact means. I’m having Madam Nu and some of her people comb through for other warnings we might have missed, and I’ve been in contact with the Master of Shadows and Sifo-Dyas, of course. The work itself will be done by Shadows and Archivists, and I understand that Master Antilles has some similar skills which we will also be using, hopefully.”
Plo’buir sighed. “You have already been incredibly valuable to this effort, Obi-Wan. I would like your further help.”
Obi-Wan perked up and looked hopeful.
“I would like you to continue to discern.”
Obi-Wan deflated. “Yes, of course,” he said, trying to offload his disappointment to the Force.
“Obi-Wan,” Plo said, his voice just a tiny bit chiding. “There is no lack of honor in being the one who organizes and sorts through the difficulties in order to strategize the best solutions. We have two hundred and fifty shadows and archivists who can’t do that job, but who are trained to handle and dismantle dark objects and ritual locations. I want you to work with the Master of Shadows very closely to create the strategy that all the rest of us are going to follow. And I don’t want this to be limited to Coruscant. Look at the wider galaxy as well. What else do we need to do, and when, and how, and what else do we need to know, in order to do it?”
Obi-Wan looked at his master in wide-eyed wonder. “Oh.”
“We want a full picture, for a complete strategy. And that will be your job for the next two years. Also training in Soresu. Yi is very interested in helping you with that, my dear. And I understand you may or may not have some padawan classes to teach,” Plo added wryly.
Ah.
Yes.
Teaching the padawans to shadow wrap.
He should probably get on those ‘secret’ lessons, soon.
“Now. You’ll need to meet with the Master of Shadows daily, between midmeal and latemeal, starting tomorrow, so make sure all of your appointments and such are before or after that. Let her know if you’ll be having your family as visitors so you can have a day or two off when they’re here, hmm?”
Obi-Wan was grinning widely. “Yes, Master.”
“This is not precisely a shadow mission, nor is it a mission from the high council, though you will certainly get credit for working on the project when all is said and done. You can discuss, generally, what we are doing with your friends and loved ones, but I would appreciate the specifics of exactly where and when we need to do what we need to do not to be revealed until after it is done.”
He nodded happily. “Of course, Master. Thank you for the clarity.”
“You know, I think I like Plo’buir better,” the older man mused.
Obi-Wan grinned. “Thank you, Buir.”
He saw him to the door, and there were hugs just as the door chime sounded again.
“Ah, perfect timing. Have a beautiful evening, my nebula. I shall perhaps join you for your morning meditations in the Bamboo Room, if I may?”
“Of course, Buir,” Obi-Wan said, beaming up at him.
And it was the delivery droid from the kitchens, with his catered latemeal and two large jugs of nutrient water.
Perfect.
Bant and Reeft arrived together and mobbed him at the door.
“It’s Obi-Wan, our favorite badass!”
“Oh my stars! Obi! And we have you all to ourselves! Not that we wished your family gone,” Bant clarified from on top of him. “But you are rather popular these days, you know.”
“It’s so strange,” Obi-Wan mused from the bottom of the pile in his still open doorway.
Eventually his friends did get off of him and he invited them in.
“You could have a dance party in here,” Reeft mused, toeing off his boots and putting them on the mat. He hung up his outer robe on one of the hooks just above it, as well, and Obi-Wan sent his silent thanks to Ill’buir.
“Oh! Oh! You hung up more pictures! Come and tell me who everyone is, just so I make sure I know them!” Bant called.
They stood by his rogue’s gallery and Obi-Wan patiently named off every Aswad cousin. Reeft went through and named off the rest of his family and lineage.
They both helped him sort out food into bowls and plates and get everything to the table and then they argued about which game to play with latemeal and they laughed and chatted while they ate.
Reeft just scraped a win in Spscrabble, but Bant and Obi-Wan had really made him work for it.
They both helped him tidy up before they had dessert and tea.
“So,” Reeft started sadly. “You’re an adult now. You have a room for a padawan. A padawan. We are still padawans over here!” he wailed dramatically.
“Oh shush,” Bant said, waving away his drama. “He’s still our Obi.”
Obi-Wan smiled at them and changed the subject. “I think I’ll start those shadow wrapping lessons for the padawan corps. Twenty minutes, once a week. Just a bit after latemeal.”
“But what about the nocturnal padawans? They’ll all be in their evening classes then,” Reeft pointed out.
“Right. Well, I could do… no, let me think about the best way to do this.”
Shadow wrapping was simple, was the thing. It required the theory, and a lot of practice.
“Okay, this is how I’m going to work it. It’s a set of three classes, with three weeks in between each one, and a lot of practice outside of class. I’ll have the classes just after firstmeal and just after latemeal, starting next week on Primeday. You have to take the classes sequentially, so if you’re on a mission or something, and you miss the second one, you’ll need to just practice what you’ve got until you can pick up the second class the next time I hold it. I’ll do it every other month for a while to make sure I hit everyone.”
“We’ll make sure everyone knows,” Reeft said.
“I know where we can meet,” Bant offered. “There’s some big gathering spaces in the Archives, and no one will look askance at all the padawans going to the Archives. I’ll have Treack book one for us on those dates and times you mentioned to the end of the year, if that works.”
“Yes, that would be perfect. Thank you, Bant.”
They ate the rest of their dessert listening to Reeft talk about the mission he’d taken with his master and Feemor and it was a perfect end to a perfect day.
His moving day.