Master Apprentice
Archive
Why Should I
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Under the dog star sail,
Over the reefs of moonshine,
Under the skies of fall,
North northwest, the stones of Faroe.
Obi-Wan had always thought of the Force as a sort of all-
encompassing ocean, all of them sensitive to different currents, but
filled and surrounded by it, like the ocean's salt water in their
individual cells. Qui-Gon had moved through the currents of the
Living Force, and Obi-Wan through the Unifying Force,
complementing each other in their time together as a training pair.
They had been a team, a partnership, a balanced whole.
Now Qui-Gon was dead, and Obi-Wan felt . . .
He didn't know what he felt. There was a strange sense of
dislocation and disbelief. He expected to hear his master's voice at
any moment, to sense his presence in the hallway or elsewhere in
the Temple reaching out through their bond to check on him.
Instead, there was this cold void where there had once been
warmth. But that had begun to form before the man was dead.
Under the Arctic fire,
Over the seas of silence,
Hauling on frozen ropes
for all my days remaining.
But would north be true?
The words started to coalesce in his mind as he watched the flames
take his master's body. Qui-Gon Jinn was dead. The man he had
spent the last 12 years of his life with. The man who had taught
him, cajoled him, driven him, argued with him, punished him,
touched him, healed him, loved him, shaped him. Made him. Gone.
And he felt lost and rudderless.
The Council said he was a knight now, that by virtue of his
defeating the creature that had killed his master, he was fit to call
himself a Jedi Knight. What did that make Qui-Gon then, besides
dead? A failure somehow? A fool, certainly, running after the Sith
without his teammate. The thing had nearly beaten him on
Tatooine, and left him so winded he'd been unable to stand. What
had possessed him to rush after it alone? Had Qui-Gon been
protecting him? Or had he simply been a fool? Whatever the
reason, he'd paid for that foolishness with his life, leaving behind
a new-minted knight saddled with a padawan before he'd gotten his
own feet under him.
All colors bleed to red
Asleep on the ocean's bed.
Drifting in empty seas
For all my days remaining.
It was like being shipwrecked, he thought, watching the flames,
smelling cloth and flesh and woodsmoke in the wind. The captain
was dead, the crew drowned, and here he was cast up on a new,
strange shore with the responsibility for the life of someone he
barely knew. He wondered if Qui-Gon had truly thought he'd been
ready for his trials, or if he'd said that only for the sake of
expediency. There'd been no time to find out. Regardless, the
Council seemed to think so, and he would keep his promise to his
master, no matter what it cost him, or how difficult it would be.
And he knew it would be difficult. At the moment it seemed
impossible. He didn't feel ready and it didn't feel quite real yet.
There'd been no ceremony, simply the decision from the Council.
Yoda had cut his padawan braid, and later that night, Obi-Wan had
shaved off his short cauda. Even now, he felt himself reaching for
his own braid periodically, remembering how Qui-Gon sometimes
had given it a tug in affection or annoyance, more often the
former reminding himself of all that had gone unspoken between
them these last years. And then he felt regret.
But would north be true?
Why should I?
Why should I cry for you?
In the beginning, he had been desperate for Qui-Gon's attention,
then grateful for it, then simply comfortable and comforted. Then,
some time near his seventeenth birthday, there'd been a subtle
change. He'd found himself leaning into the brief touches, wanting
more. At first he'd passed it off as a crush, but it had grown
instead of diminishing, over the years, grown into something warm and
deep, something underlying their day to day relationship like
bedrock.
Neither of them had spoken of it, or felt the need to. It was just
there, waiting for a time when it was possible to pursue it more
fully. As Qui-Gon's padawan, he knew it was not wise to act on his
feelings yet. So he had hoarded them, and lived on touches and
glances and silent promises of a moment that never came. Not only
had that moment never come, it had never been mentioned. Qui-
Gon's last words had been not of his present padawan, but of the
one he had set Obi-Wan aside for in front of the Council.
In that ill-considered moment, everything Obi-Wan had felt for
Qui-Gon Jinn had turned to ashes in his heart. By the time his
former master's body was given to the flames, what he had thought
they'd had was as cold and dead as the man he'd once loved. So
there was no grief in his heart. But there was anger.
Dark angels follow me
Over a godless sea
Mountains of endless falling,
For all my days remaining.
Had Qui-Gon ever loved him, he wondered? Had he ever loved
anyone? Was he capable of it? In all their years together, he'd
never seen his master with a lover, not really. He'd claimed to love
Knight Tahl, had apparently been devastated by her death. But they
had never really been lovers, and there was no one else that Obi-
Wan knew of, not even through the rumor mill. Perhaps that
explained his failure with Xanatos, as well. Did Qui-Gon Jinn
know how to love anyone?
What would be true?
Did it matter?
The flames burned higher and hotter, cloth vanishing, flesh
blackening and shriveling, the stink of burning hair in the wind.
Yoda, Mace and the others watched silently, as silently as Obi-
Wan, as the shell of the man who had been a master swordsman
and diplomat was reduced to a few handsful of basic chemical
compounds. Anakin, despite himself, nestled up to him, clutched at
his hand. Obi-Wan felt nothing, but closed his fingers around the
boy's, squeezing gently, reassuringly. There was no point in
punishing the boy for coming between them. It had been Qui-Gon
who had placed him there, not Anakin who had thrust himself into
this situation. He was a child, afraid and alone, and the man who
had promised to take care of him had abandoned him to the care of
people who didn't trust him for reasons he didn't understand.
Almost, Obi-Wan could feel sorry for him.
He watched blankly as the body was consumed, wanting to feel
something but completely unable to. Flames and smoke bled
together against the darkness, obscuring everything but the pyre
and the small circle of mourners. His heart was on that pyre too, all
his hope and happiness, perhaps even his future, flames eating
away at everything he thought he knew. The words trickled into
Obi-Wan's mind one after the other, forming thoughts and phrases
and sentences, forming finally, a kind of poem, a dirge, an elegy of
sorts, though it was more for his own heart than for the dead man,
for what had been killed by a few harsh words, a careless
declaration.
Sometimes I see your face,
The stars seem to lose their place.
Why must I think of you?
Why must I?
Why should I?
Why should I cry for you?
Why would you want me to?
And what would it mean to say,
That I loved you in my fashion?
When he looked up again, the fire was cold and he was alone. He
felt himself sliding down the wall until he was squatting against it,
his hood fallen over his head, face buried in his hands. He wanted
to cry and couldn't. He wanted to scream and rail and rant and
shout and swear, but that was not allowed. He was a Jedi Knight,
and he had a padawan. His master was dead and he was the master
now. Everything had changed.
What would be true?
The wind came up as he sat against the stone wall, cutting across
the rooftops of Theed's palace and sweeping into the little arched
enclosure at the top of the Tower of Sorrows, blowing the last of
the smoke from the pyre, lifting the lightest of the ashes away to
scatter across the courtyard below. What was left of Qui-Gon's
body was dissipating into the physical world as his spirit had into
the Force. Rains would wash the rest of it away, eventually. Soon
there would be nothing at all.
Why should I?
Why should I cry for you?
Obi-Wan struggled to his feet and pulled his cloak around him,
then walked the long spiraldown to the ground, Qui-Gon's ashes
still swirling around him.
There was only the future now. The past was dead. All of it. The
moments stretched before him, one after the other, empty, empty,
empty.
#END#