Ficlet: "Love Story", Anakin/Obi-Wan Episode III AU thing
I wrote this ficlet right after watching Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and then forgot about it, and then thought I'd lost it on my laptop, and then just recovered it.
It's a strange one, where I got to thinking of the sheer alienness that must be the life of a Jedi. A knowing of all of the races of all of the worlds, and their mixes of values. And well. I didn't much like the movie's ending, though of course we all knew the inevitable.
But maybe he didn't have to kill Anakin. Maybe, in my world, he didn't.
Love Story
When Obi Wan is a small boy, at the edge of barely speaking (mostly listening to the whispering, crackling, mumbling of the universe), he believes deeply in the ever-told stories. The forever tales, with their simple starts and stops and noble cruel characters.
He listens to the older children string out the words with quickened breath, hurried, slurred speech, and oddly older-than-them solemn quiet, and knows that they are secrets before he knows the what of secrets. The how of their works; the why of keeping them.
There is the wily Milaca, with his twisty furred beard and smart, truth like lies. The creator mud god, who was merely dirty and much too old for movement, before they began believing. Before they made him out of himself.
He hears of the child king, who blinks up a whirlwind, and whose chortle commands a thousand men -- a league of grand warriors. They are proud to die for him. They are foolish, and lose, and the child's body is rent in five pieces, to be shared amongst his family. This is good ending, a favorite on this planet. The boy telling it smiles.
And there is his favorite, the his-story, the one that feels (for they say there is one for every soul, the story that is truest for them): of the Kopi, with their proud iron feathers -- metallic green plumage.
The story tells that there was a boy who went out past his familiar fields, as he should when he is old enough, and returns to his lover standing at the front gates of his familyplace. He had met her in the forests, in secret, and asked her never to come here. He knows of her people, and did not mean to wake her, for her kind do terrible things.
When she greets him he tastes the death of his brother on her breath - his father, and proud, prickly faced sister - and weeps from it and will not look at her.
But she greets him not with falsehoods, for the Kopi do not hold high the liar gods, and she makes him meet her, with the harsh grip of her trembling talon hands, the warmth of them smearing the blood of his family on his chin. "It is true, for it is the way of things, the way of me, and yet I love you. I have always loved you."
And that was true too, the farmer-son saw. If the east dwellers felt the feelings for tears, they would pour down, never ending. And yet there is still his mother in his house, and he fears for her.
--
Obi-Wan shouts, hoarse torn throat screams, "You were supposed to be--"
--Why
Why
Why
How could you
I know I know I know I
Why couldn't you see she's not your mother?--
and then it is no longer positive what he's killing him for.
He knows. And yet.
He does not know himself as he should. They do not -- none of them. Still circle of measuring, stretching tree-like bodies. Arms, swords like branches cutting across the sky.
None foresaw this.
(None stood, and sighed, and saw a child worth saving)
--
There are places beyond magic, beyond green, beyond the small grains of life in the desert, with long ink aired caves for sleeping in.
Places that he can close his eyes and see (not everything is hopelessly clouded).
Not everything, but the everflowing goblet in his heart, stomach, neck, pulse is stopped, swollen and tight against some soft skin flask covering.
Damp water jug for a head, now. Not everything, but enough.
No one will find them.
It's a strange one, where I got to thinking of the sheer alienness that must be the life of a Jedi. A knowing of all of the races of all of the worlds, and their mixes of values. And well. I didn't much like the movie's ending, though of course we all knew the inevitable.
But maybe he didn't have to kill Anakin. Maybe, in my world, he didn't.
Love Story
When Obi Wan is a small boy, at the edge of barely speaking (mostly listening to the whispering, crackling, mumbling of the universe), he believes deeply in the ever-told stories. The forever tales, with their simple starts and stops and noble cruel characters.
He listens to the older children string out the words with quickened breath, hurried, slurred speech, and oddly older-than-them solemn quiet, and knows that they are secrets before he knows the what of secrets. The how of their works; the why of keeping them.
There is the wily Milaca, with his twisty furred beard and smart, truth like lies. The creator mud god, who was merely dirty and much too old for movement, before they began believing. Before they made him out of himself.
He hears of the child king, who blinks up a whirlwind, and whose chortle commands a thousand men -- a league of grand warriors. They are proud to die for him. They are foolish, and lose, and the child's body is rent in five pieces, to be shared amongst his family. This is good ending, a favorite on this planet. The boy telling it smiles.
And there is his favorite, the his-story, the one that feels (for they say there is one for every soul, the story that is truest for them): of the Kopi, with their proud iron feathers -- metallic green plumage.
The story tells that there was a boy who went out past his familiar fields, as he should when he is old enough, and returns to his lover standing at the front gates of his familyplace. He had met her in the forests, in secret, and asked her never to come here. He knows of her people, and did not mean to wake her, for her kind do terrible things.
When she greets him he tastes the death of his brother on her breath - his father, and proud, prickly faced sister - and weeps from it and will not look at her.
But she greets him not with falsehoods, for the Kopi do not hold high the liar gods, and she makes him meet her, with the harsh grip of her trembling talon hands, the warmth of them smearing the blood of his family on his chin. "It is true, for it is the way of things, the way of me, and yet I love you. I have always loved you."
And that was true too, the farmer-son saw. If the east dwellers felt the feelings for tears, they would pour down, never ending. And yet there is still his mother in his house, and he fears for her.
--
Obi-Wan shouts, hoarse torn throat screams, "You were supposed to be--"
--Why
Why
Why
How could you
I know I know I know I
Why couldn't you see she's not your mother?--
and then it is no longer positive what he's killing him for.
He knows. And yet.
He does not know himself as he should. They do not -- none of them. Still circle of measuring, stretching tree-like bodies. Arms, swords like branches cutting across the sky.
None foresaw this.
(None stood, and sighed, and saw a child worth saving)
--
There are places beyond magic, beyond green, beyond the small grains of life in the desert, with long ink aired caves for sleeping in.
Places that he can close his eyes and see (not everything is hopelessly clouded).
Not everything, but the everflowing goblet in his heart, stomach, neck, pulse is stopped, swollen and tight against some soft skin flask covering.
Damp water jug for a head, now. Not everything, but enough.
No one will find them.