Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II
There were chairs and tables set up all across the lawn; some were by the bonfire, for the people who wanted to be warm and central to everything else at the picnic, and some were set farther away from the action, for the people who wanted more peace and quiet.
There was no escaping the glitter though. Sorry, but not really.
[OCD is up! This is ( Read more... )
There was no escaping the glitter though. Sorry, but not really.
[OCD is up! This is ( Read more... )
There had been commotion here, in this park. Usually trouble tended to appear where the people were, and usually trouble was where Obi-Wan was meant to be.
It was a crowd, though. After months in the desert by himself - and remembering the last time he had been among a crowd - Obi-Wan had mixed feelings on that matter. He tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe and pressed onward, searching for whatever it is that was meant to draw him here.
So far, the only trouble he kept bumping into were hormonal teenagers.
Though perhaps that was trouble enough.
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He dropped his coffee, eyes wide.
Sithspit.
Um. Poor choice of curse, self.
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And unmistakable, it was now-- even though that was impossible. The image of Anakin's body burning, eyes red was grafted onto Obi-Wan's memories where it couldn't be escaped.
But when he turned and looked, it was, indeed, unmistakably Anakin.
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Then, as now, he was absolutely certain he was being judged and found wanting. He felt like his feet were rooted to the grass of the park--he couldn't move, either to close the distance or to flee for the causeway.
He swallowed around a huge lump in his throat, unable to speak and equally unable to look away.
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But there was no malice and hatred emanating from Anakin now. That, in and of itself, knocked him off balance. Was this a vision? He knew with sudden, perfect clarity that this was why Qui-Gon had guided him here.
It would have been helpful had Qui-Gon given him even the faintest idea of what to do when he got to... here. Staring at Anakin, with Anakin staring at him like twin gaping fish.
His chest hurt.
He let this feeling pass into the Force.
The tenseness in the limb that had wanted to go for his lightsaber vanished, but his stance did not relax. With that, sense returned. He could not stand here indefinitely, and he would not run.
With those options stricken from consideration, there was only one path left to him: the steady walk towards where Anakin - vision or otherwise - stood.
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So much for the hope that he was coming in before Order 66...
His eyes stayed locked on Obi-Wan's face, half stubbornness and half a starved need to see these features again.
Anakin had never been good at letting things go.
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He stopped within speaking distance, but no closer. He looked entirely at ease now; a talent he had picked up a long time ago. He only wished it brought the serenity he was supposed to feel - that he thought he had finally embraced. Instead there was pain, confusion, sorrow and caution, spiraling and feeding into each other, disorienting him. Tucked away behind shields, surely, but he held no illusions about how well they would work if this was Anakin in the flesh.
"Anakin," he said evenly, "Now this is a surprise."
To put it mildly.
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Speaking in the present tense was harder than he'd expected.
"No wonder the front office got evasive about me seeing the new teaching roster."
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Then again, neither did Anakin being here in one piece and, clearly, not languishing in dark side energy. It felt like a piece of wishful thinking at best - wishful thinking he shouldn't even be entertaining. Or wishing.
It didn't help that that laugh still made some part of him ache to soothe some of the hurt.
And here Obi-Wan had thought the days of being at odds with himself were over. He'd been blind to Anakin's descent before; whatever old instincts raised their heads, caution was a better counsel. "What is this place?" he asked, as he wrapped his thoughts in tighter shields. "And what are you doing here?"
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And he waited for Obi-Wan to lose it.
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Anakin Skywalker, nascent Sith Lord only what felt like yesterday, was an ethics teacher.
Anakin.
(Who would, admittedly, know something about troubled teenagers.)
( ... who had murdered so many of them, at the Temple.)
The sheer absurdity of the situation caught up with him in a flash, passed through him, and then into the earth under his feet.
"They let you near their younglings," he said, and immediately regretted it. "You must have made some grave leaps in your understanding of ethics indeed."
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"Maybe some," he replied, staring at his boots. "I've been teaching almost a decade now. I think I have more patience than I did when Ahsoka was my Padawan."
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If only this conversation were less surreal. If only anything Anakin was saying made any sense at all.
He reached into the Force for a measure of calm. "And you have been here for a decade. Of course you have," he said. "Strange, then, that in my recollection it has scarcely been a year since you murdered your way to Mustafar."
(So much for calm.)
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"I'm not who you remember any longer," he said, eyes sad. "Hopefully you'll stick around a while to realize that."
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"You were not who I remembered the last time I saw you," he said. The expression faded, and he stroked his beard in an idle, unconscious gesture as he looked at Anakin. "Different multiverses, then. But you do recall the same events I do."
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