Project Revision: Progress Update/ providing structural support (discussion and draft)
This is the "next bit" I promised in my previous post. It's still a work in progress - I feel, for example, that some of the lines are a bit clunky, and I don't feel entirely comfortable ending the chapter where it currently does, even though the bit about "leaping" (you'll see) is a pretty good exit line. I've written more, but I'm not sure that I like what I have for the continuation; it needs even more work than this does. Anyway. I thought I'd put this bit up here and throw it open to feedback; the responses I've gotten back on the last couple of pieces have been helpful and have adjusted the unfurling of the story somewhat, so if you want to have an impact (make a difference, guys!), here is your chance. :)
There'll be a more comprehensive thank-you in the "finished" fic post, but in the meantime I'd like to particularly thank
hikarific for persuading me to include more biomedical material,
estora and
chameleon_irony for reminding me of all the reasons why a move away from Creepy!Obi-Wan was a good thing, and
pronker for being generally encouraging and supportive.
There is a reference to old-school Soviet medicine embedded in here, but I'm not using the terminology exactly as Dr. Angelina Guskova did. If you can spot the reference AND tell me Guskova's famous use of it, I will write you a drabble for a SW character or pairing of your choice! :)
___________
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.
Obi-Wan followed up on Yoda’s offer before going to retrieve Anakin from the Archives. A few extra minutes of waiting wouldn’t hurt his Padawan; they might even teach him some much-needed patience.
Unlikely.
He detoured to the Temple’s medical center to retrieve Ryn Orun’s records. It took a while to locate them because they were listed under a different first name: Orun, Areth’ryn Llewellyn, with several honorifics following, and the Padawan managing the records desk had to try a series of different search parameters before she found the right file.
“There’s a lot here,” she said, examining the screen critically. “You want all of it?”
“I -- yes,” said Obi-Wan, frowning. A lot of it? Has the girl been ill?
The Padawan shrugged, as if to disclaim all responsibility for the volume of material, and pulled out a datareader. “It’ll just be a minute.”
Obi-Wan nodded, but apparently the Padawan was feeling chatty. “How’s An -- Padawan Skywalker?”
Obi-Wan lifted a desultory eyebrow. “Anakin is fine, thank you.”
“I haven’t seen him for a while. Missions?”
“Yes, we’ve been keeping busy.”
“I’ll bet he likes it that way. But we miss him around here.” She blushed faintly. “In the Temple, I mean. He’s, uh ... a good sparring partner.”
Oh, Anakin. What have you been up to?
“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”
She perked a little. “Padawan Dresnell, sir. I took a Comparative Literatures class with Padawan Skywalker a few months ago.”
Comparative Literatures. How Anakin had hated that class. And Obi-Wan was quite sure that he had never mentioned a Padawan Dresnell. “I’ll be sure to tell Anakin you asked about him.”
“Do, please, sir. Master Kenobi.” Her blush deepened as she dropped the filled datareader into his hand. “Tell him Arayna said hello.”
“I most certainly will,” Obi-Wan assured her, lifting the ‘reader in farewell as he edged toward the door.
And I’ll ask Anakin why I’ve never heard of you before.
: : :
He flipped casually through Orun’s medical records as he strolled back to the Archives, looking for ... he wasn’t sure, exactly. Something that would explain that odd sense of resonance he’d gotten from her yesterday. She felt significant -- or maybe it wasn’t her at all; maybe it was the distant planet of which she was supposed to be a representative. The threat of a heretic philosophy. Obi-Wan didn’t know, and the lack of clarity about his own instincts was making him uneasy.
Be mindful of the Living Force, Qui-Gon’s voice whispered, and Obi-Wan felt his throat catch painfully before he could release his renewed grief into the Force.
Yes, Master.
Orun was younger than he’d thought; based on their two brief encounters, he would have guessed her at Anakin’s age or a little older, maybe Ferus Olin’s. But according to the documents in front of him, she was not yet thirteen standard years old.
It was not so surprising, he supposed; he must have known at least a few female agemates who had attained their physical maturity before being sent to the Agri-Corps, though he hadn’t been paying all that much attention at the time. But Orun -- despite her obvious reaction to Anakin -- seemed unusually self-possessed for a girl of twelve, and that had to be indicative of something. The girl’s status in her own society, perhaps? When Orun first came to the Temple, Obi-Wan remembered hearing that she was some kind of aristocrat, the daughter of an important family. He and Anakin had been fresh off their conflict over Podracing and Bog Divinian then, and other things had seemed more important. Now he wondered: why had Loreth sent her, an untried girl, in payment of their perceived debt? And more importantly, why had the Council allowed her presence here, in the Temple itself, where she might foment dangerous dissent?
What really happened to Nezzeil Tam?
It soon became apparent that the size of Orun’s file derived not from a history of illness, but from the sheer volume of information that had be collected about her biostrata -- the resting equilibrium of her body as a living organism in interaction with its environment. Probably the Healers had been curious because of the -- he double-checked, just to make sure -- fluctuating midichlorian count. That should have been stable, but Orun’s readings were all over the chart -- mostly at the low end, but wildly inconsistent nonetheless. They had to be driving the Healers crazy. And so they had been trying to figure out what made her work, essentially by ...
It took him a minute to sort it out, and even then he had to stop and go through the evidence again. But it was all here, before his eyes, obvious once you know what to look for. Most of it was probably harmless; Obi-Wan couldn’t imagine Vokara Che participating in the willful endangerment of any living being. But the fact remained that the reams of data he was holding in his hands represented what amounted to a lot of experiments and their (carefully documented) results. Someone had deliberately put a young girl’s system under stress, again and again, to measure its biostratic responses. And although, according to the reports, Orun remained in excellent health, Obi-Wan had spent enough time in the medical center himself as a boy to know it wasn’t somewhere anybody would choose to pass a day or three.
Orun’s first few months in the Jedi Temple could not have been happy ones.
But none of the data provided could tell him what he really wanted to know: why did he have this uneasy feeling that he was missing something important here? And was it something about Orun herself, unlikely as that seemed -- or something else, connected to her or her people in some way he didn’t see yet? Did Loreth pose a threat, however distantly, to the Republic?
Only you can decide what questions you must ask, Yoda had told him.
But how will I know where to look?
Don’t think, Qui-Gon used to say. Feel.
Except Obi-Wan had never been very good at that. The Living Force didn’t speak to him the way it had to Qui-Gon; he couldn’t surrender to it effortlessly, as his mentor had done, much less live in it, intuitively, the way Anakin did. Obi-Wan struggled with the present, with immediacy; with not worrying about the future, but simply being in the moment. Anticipation is distraction, Qui-Gon had coached him, over and over again; but for Obi-Wan, the Unifying Force came easier.
Patience, he decided, stepping through the looming doors into the Archives. I must meditate and seek the will of the Force, not be guided by my own curiosity. As often as I counsel Anakin to look before he leaps ... that’s a lesson I could use myself, sometimes. And I need to keep my focus in the here and now, look beneath my feet and not too far ahead of them . . .
He turned a corner into the study area, still lecturing himself, and discovered that Fate -- or maybe Anakin -- had done some of the leaping for him.
This entry was originally posted at http://wyncatastrophe.dreamwidth.org/110456.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
There'll be a more comprehensive thank-you in the "finished" fic post, but in the meantime I'd like to particularly thank
hikarific for persuading me to include more biomedical material,
estora and
chameleon_irony for reminding me of all the reasons why a move away from Creepy!Obi-Wan was a good thing, and
pronker for being generally encouraging and supportive.
There is a reference to old-school Soviet medicine embedded in here, but I'm not using the terminology exactly as Dr. Angelina Guskova did. If you can spot the reference AND tell me Guskova's famous use of it, I will write you a drabble for a SW character or pairing of your choice! :)
___________
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.
Obi-Wan followed up on Yoda’s offer before going to retrieve Anakin from the Archives. A few extra minutes of waiting wouldn’t hurt his Padawan; they might even teach him some much-needed patience.
Unlikely.
He detoured to the Temple’s medical center to retrieve Ryn Orun’s records. It took a while to locate them because they were listed under a different first name: Orun, Areth’ryn Llewellyn, with several honorifics following, and the Padawan managing the records desk had to try a series of different search parameters before she found the right file.
“There’s a lot here,” she said, examining the screen critically. “You want all of it?”
“I -- yes,” said Obi-Wan, frowning. A lot of it? Has the girl been ill?
The Padawan shrugged, as if to disclaim all responsibility for the volume of material, and pulled out a datareader. “It’ll just be a minute.”
Obi-Wan nodded, but apparently the Padawan was feeling chatty. “How’s An -- Padawan Skywalker?”
Obi-Wan lifted a desultory eyebrow. “Anakin is fine, thank you.”
“I haven’t seen him for a while. Missions?”
“Yes, we’ve been keeping busy.”
“I’ll bet he likes it that way. But we miss him around here.” She blushed faintly. “In the Temple, I mean. He’s, uh ... a good sparring partner.”
Oh, Anakin. What have you been up to?
“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”
She perked a little. “Padawan Dresnell, sir. I took a Comparative Literatures class with Padawan Skywalker a few months ago.”
Comparative Literatures. How Anakin had hated that class. And Obi-Wan was quite sure that he had never mentioned a Padawan Dresnell. “I’ll be sure to tell Anakin you asked about him.”
“Do, please, sir. Master Kenobi.” Her blush deepened as she dropped the filled datareader into his hand. “Tell him Arayna said hello.”
“I most certainly will,” Obi-Wan assured her, lifting the ‘reader in farewell as he edged toward the door.
And I’ll ask Anakin why I’ve never heard of you before.
: : :
He flipped casually through Orun’s medical records as he strolled back to the Archives, looking for ... he wasn’t sure, exactly. Something that would explain that odd sense of resonance he’d gotten from her yesterday. She felt significant -- or maybe it wasn’t her at all; maybe it was the distant planet of which she was supposed to be a representative. The threat of a heretic philosophy. Obi-Wan didn’t know, and the lack of clarity about his own instincts was making him uneasy.
Be mindful of the Living Force, Qui-Gon’s voice whispered, and Obi-Wan felt his throat catch painfully before he could release his renewed grief into the Force.
Yes, Master.
Orun was younger than he’d thought; based on their two brief encounters, he would have guessed her at Anakin’s age or a little older, maybe Ferus Olin’s. But according to the documents in front of him, she was not yet thirteen standard years old.
It was not so surprising, he supposed; he must have known at least a few female agemates who had attained their physical maturity before being sent to the Agri-Corps, though he hadn’t been paying all that much attention at the time. But Orun -- despite her obvious reaction to Anakin -- seemed unusually self-possessed for a girl of twelve, and that had to be indicative of something. The girl’s status in her own society, perhaps? When Orun first came to the Temple, Obi-Wan remembered hearing that she was some kind of aristocrat, the daughter of an important family. He and Anakin had been fresh off their conflict over Podracing and Bog Divinian then, and other things had seemed more important. Now he wondered: why had Loreth sent her, an untried girl, in payment of their perceived debt? And more importantly, why had the Council allowed her presence here, in the Temple itself, where she might foment dangerous dissent?
What really happened to Nezzeil Tam?
It soon became apparent that the size of Orun’s file derived not from a history of illness, but from the sheer volume of information that had be collected about her biostrata -- the resting equilibrium of her body as a living organism in interaction with its environment. Probably the Healers had been curious because of the -- he double-checked, just to make sure -- fluctuating midichlorian count. That should have been stable, but Orun’s readings were all over the chart -- mostly at the low end, but wildly inconsistent nonetheless. They had to be driving the Healers crazy. And so they had been trying to figure out what made her work, essentially by ...
It took him a minute to sort it out, and even then he had to stop and go through the evidence again. But it was all here, before his eyes, obvious once you know what to look for. Most of it was probably harmless; Obi-Wan couldn’t imagine Vokara Che participating in the willful endangerment of any living being. But the fact remained that the reams of data he was holding in his hands represented what amounted to a lot of experiments and their (carefully documented) results. Someone had deliberately put a young girl’s system under stress, again and again, to measure its biostratic responses. And although, according to the reports, Orun remained in excellent health, Obi-Wan had spent enough time in the medical center himself as a boy to know it wasn’t somewhere anybody would choose to pass a day or three.
Orun’s first few months in the Jedi Temple could not have been happy ones.
But none of the data provided could tell him what he really wanted to know: why did he have this uneasy feeling that he was missing something important here? And was it something about Orun herself, unlikely as that seemed -- or something else, connected to her or her people in some way he didn’t see yet? Did Loreth pose a threat, however distantly, to the Republic?
Only you can decide what questions you must ask, Yoda had told him.
But how will I know where to look?
Don’t think, Qui-Gon used to say. Feel.
Except Obi-Wan had never been very good at that. The Living Force didn’t speak to him the way it had to Qui-Gon; he couldn’t surrender to it effortlessly, as his mentor had done, much less live in it, intuitively, the way Anakin did. Obi-Wan struggled with the present, with immediacy; with not worrying about the future, but simply being in the moment. Anticipation is distraction, Qui-Gon had coached him, over and over again; but for Obi-Wan, the Unifying Force came easier.
Patience, he decided, stepping through the looming doors into the Archives. I must meditate and seek the will of the Force, not be guided by my own curiosity. As often as I counsel Anakin to look before he leaps ... that’s a lesson I could use myself, sometimes. And I need to keep my focus in the here and now, look beneath my feet and not too far ahead of them . . .
He turned a corner into the study area, still lecturing himself, and discovered that Fate -- or maybe Anakin -- had done some of the leaping for him.
This entry was originally posted at http://wyncatastrophe.dreamwidth.org/110456.html. Please comment there using OpenID.