Star Wars: Head Down
Title: “Head Down”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: G
Timeline: post-ROTS
Summary: Years after the fall of the Jedi Order, an old acquaintance seeks Obi-Wan out on Tatooine. [mild hints of Asajj Ventress/Obi-Wan Kenobi]
Disclaimer: Star Wars belong to George Lucas.
A/N: My growing need for pairings in this gen fandom saw to this. XD I finally got my hands on all chapters of Star Wars: Obsession and… well, this happened.
HEAD DOWN
He looked so tired. It was the first thing she noticed about him: weariness. What had this dry planet done to him?
There was a web of wrinkles around his eyes. His face looked worn, windblown; tousled hair shot through with greyish streaks fell upon his forehead. She had seen him bloodied and bruised, the breastplate of his white armour sagging and pressing hard against his chest. She had seen pity and determination and sorrow and fire in his eyes. She had had his lightsaber pass swiftly within a millimetre of her body, so close she had trembled from its heat.
She would be ready for anything but this.
He looked broken.
It’s funny, she thought, that in the end, the Jedi fell - yet she could no longer revel in dark triumph. It meant nothing. She had fled the battlefield, betrayed and abandoned and baffled by the turmoil of emotions that the one person she could never kill had stirred within her.
What had become of the brash young Skywalker? What had become of the annoying Togruta girl? Dead, all dead, left him alone, pushed him to vent his grief under the merciless twin suns of this desert planet!..
She observed him walking down the dune and tried to imagine where he would be now if things had turned out differently. Probably sitting somewhere in the Temple on Coruscant or doing an away mission on the Outer Rim. Brave, infallible General Kenobi, all alone now. It should have made her smile. But it didn’t.
She had been far away when she heard the Jedi had fallen. All of them? she had asked nonchalantly, trying not to betray a hint of concern. So they say, the answer followed.
She searched her feelings. There was nothing. Nothing but the name Kenobi pulsing dimly within her mind like a flicker of dying light. He could not have died, she had told herself. Not by a clone’s hand. Not now. Not like this!
She chose to wait. She waited, waited, and waited, but nothing would change. The Empire had risen. Her old Master had gone. As for her old enemy-
She refused to believe it. She knew full well how hard it was to get rid of Kenobi. She waited some more. Willed him to emerge, to take action, to do something, to stop the madness the man in the black helmet was sowing. But Kenobi kept silent.
One day she left her hideout, an unremarkable jungle planet where she was living an unremarkable life, and began searching for him. In the end it was sheer luck that she had got on his trail, and it led her to Tatooine. And when she saw him, a living ghost among the sandy hillocks, something in her chest fluttered. A heart perhaps; but with all the cybertronics, she had forgotten if she still had one.
She turned and left before he could sense her presence in the Force.
* * *
He lived in a small hovel on the southwestern edge of the Dune sea. Rather ascetic, as should be expected from a Jedi.
As she came in, eruptions of sand spewed on the clean floor. She made a mental note to self to sweep them out later, lest he should notice someone breaking and entering.
She inspected a set of plain kitchenware, an unremarkable pantry, a rickety humidifier unit, peeked inside the stove to find no traces of food having been made there as if he didn’t eat or cleaned far too obsessively. She opened a heavy chest that turned out to contain some old clothes. She wondered where he was hiding his lightsaber. He could hardly carry it around, yet she didn’t believe it had occurred to him to throw it away.
Deep in thought, she lowered herself on the bed. It was semicircular, protruding from a shallow niche cut into the whitewashed wall. Twilight reigned in the house. She brushed her palm over the woolen bedspread. It might be cold here at night.
Ventilation system buzzed quietly. She lay back on the bed and tried to pretend she was back in her own hut on the jungle moon. No luck, though. Everything around her, while so seemingly neutral, spelled Kenobi’s presence. She remembered dying in his arms. It would only be fair if he died in hers.
She looked at the ceiling, as featureless as the walls. Smooth, with tiny cracks and occasional rough patches, white on white. He must be so bored here.
She willed herself to get up and examined a few shelves carved into the wall and returned to the storage chest and passed by the cellar trapdoor restlessly. The Jedi weapon had to be there somewhere.
She continued her search, anxiously, until her fingers finally touched the familiarly shaped hilt. It turned up literally before her eyes, in a small toolbox on the table near the bed that she had initially dismissed as insignificant. She looked around, testing the surroundings, and pulled the weapon out. It had been years since she last held a lightsaber.
She resisted activating it. One could never be too cautious. She trailed her fingers down the smooth surface of the hilt, entranced by touching it almost as strongly as she was entranced by seeing its owner alive, a vision from the past.
But it was not his sword. She examined it more closely. Who did it belong to? Skywalker, most likely. Obi-Wan must have kept it as a reminder of who he’d lost.
She sat down and stared at the lightsaber blankly. They made a fine team, Kenobi and Skywalker, the fabled general and the Hero With No Fear.
She recalled the onslaught of emotions she had experienced, having lost her Master. How hard had it been for Kenobi not to give in to anger?
So many questions she would never ask him.
She put the lightsaber back into its hiding place. Time to leave. He could come home any minute. She didn’t know what she could say to him if he found her here. After all, both of them had long since been dead.
* * *
She watched him across the cantina hall. He brought the cup up to his mouth and took a sip. He looked tense, as if on the alert, and she wondered if he had sensed her after all. She pulled the hood lower over her eyes.
And then she heard his voice.
A droid waiter rolled up to him and placed his order on the table.
“Thank you,” Obi-Wan said automatically.
She shot him a bewildered glance. It was almost like she’d forgotten he could speak. His voice sounded so familiar: gentle, sharp, with hints of underlying strength. These two words shot through her like a missile. Perhaps he should have perished in the Purges. The suffering was too great. How did you deal with it without seeking comforts of the Dark Side?
But that would never be an option for Obi-Wan. He was perhaps the only true Jedi: he knew all sorts of darkness, yet he resisted and he survived untainted.
She turned away, afraid his longing would somehow reach her across the hall and infect her. She could approach him now, touch his shoulder, tell him he wasn’t completely alone - in the end she still had him to thank for setting her free. She could; but she wouldn’t. Ghosts should not see other ghosts.
Ventress left the cantina and headed for the space port, bidding farewell to the blazing twin suns, the sweltering heat and the wretched Obi-Wan Kenobi who would still be there, across the universe, within an arm’s reach. Maybe someday when she felt braver; but not now.
October 1-2, 2009
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: G
Timeline: post-ROTS
Summary: Years after the fall of the Jedi Order, an old acquaintance seeks Obi-Wan out on Tatooine. [mild hints of Asajj Ventress/Obi-Wan Kenobi]
Disclaimer: Star Wars belong to George Lucas.
A/N: My growing need for pairings in this gen fandom saw to this. XD I finally got my hands on all chapters of Star Wars: Obsession and… well, this happened.
HEAD DOWN
He looked so tired. It was the first thing she noticed about him: weariness. What had this dry planet done to him?
There was a web of wrinkles around his eyes. His face looked worn, windblown; tousled hair shot through with greyish streaks fell upon his forehead. She had seen him bloodied and bruised, the breastplate of his white armour sagging and pressing hard against his chest. She had seen pity and determination and sorrow and fire in his eyes. She had had his lightsaber pass swiftly within a millimetre of her body, so close she had trembled from its heat.
She would be ready for anything but this.
He looked broken.
It’s funny, she thought, that in the end, the Jedi fell - yet she could no longer revel in dark triumph. It meant nothing. She had fled the battlefield, betrayed and abandoned and baffled by the turmoil of emotions that the one person she could never kill had stirred within her.
What had become of the brash young Skywalker? What had become of the annoying Togruta girl? Dead, all dead, left him alone, pushed him to vent his grief under the merciless twin suns of this desert planet!..
She observed him walking down the dune and tried to imagine where he would be now if things had turned out differently. Probably sitting somewhere in the Temple on Coruscant or doing an away mission on the Outer Rim. Brave, infallible General Kenobi, all alone now. It should have made her smile. But it didn’t.
She had been far away when she heard the Jedi had fallen. All of them? she had asked nonchalantly, trying not to betray a hint of concern. So they say, the answer followed.
She searched her feelings. There was nothing. Nothing but the name Kenobi pulsing dimly within her mind like a flicker of dying light. He could not have died, she had told herself. Not by a clone’s hand. Not now. Not like this!
She chose to wait. She waited, waited, and waited, but nothing would change. The Empire had risen. Her old Master had gone. As for her old enemy-
She refused to believe it. She knew full well how hard it was to get rid of Kenobi. She waited some more. Willed him to emerge, to take action, to do something, to stop the madness the man in the black helmet was sowing. But Kenobi kept silent.
One day she left her hideout, an unremarkable jungle planet where she was living an unremarkable life, and began searching for him. In the end it was sheer luck that she had got on his trail, and it led her to Tatooine. And when she saw him, a living ghost among the sandy hillocks, something in her chest fluttered. A heart perhaps; but with all the cybertronics, she had forgotten if she still had one.
She turned and left before he could sense her presence in the Force.
* * *
He lived in a small hovel on the southwestern edge of the Dune sea. Rather ascetic, as should be expected from a Jedi.
As she came in, eruptions of sand spewed on the clean floor. She made a mental note to self to sweep them out later, lest he should notice someone breaking and entering.
She inspected a set of plain kitchenware, an unremarkable pantry, a rickety humidifier unit, peeked inside the stove to find no traces of food having been made there as if he didn’t eat or cleaned far too obsessively. She opened a heavy chest that turned out to contain some old clothes. She wondered where he was hiding his lightsaber. He could hardly carry it around, yet she didn’t believe it had occurred to him to throw it away.
Deep in thought, she lowered herself on the bed. It was semicircular, protruding from a shallow niche cut into the whitewashed wall. Twilight reigned in the house. She brushed her palm over the woolen bedspread. It might be cold here at night.
Ventilation system buzzed quietly. She lay back on the bed and tried to pretend she was back in her own hut on the jungle moon. No luck, though. Everything around her, while so seemingly neutral, spelled Kenobi’s presence. She remembered dying in his arms. It would only be fair if he died in hers.
She looked at the ceiling, as featureless as the walls. Smooth, with tiny cracks and occasional rough patches, white on white. He must be so bored here.
She willed herself to get up and examined a few shelves carved into the wall and returned to the storage chest and passed by the cellar trapdoor restlessly. The Jedi weapon had to be there somewhere.
She continued her search, anxiously, until her fingers finally touched the familiarly shaped hilt. It turned up literally before her eyes, in a small toolbox on the table near the bed that she had initially dismissed as insignificant. She looked around, testing the surroundings, and pulled the weapon out. It had been years since she last held a lightsaber.
She resisted activating it. One could never be too cautious. She trailed her fingers down the smooth surface of the hilt, entranced by touching it almost as strongly as she was entranced by seeing its owner alive, a vision from the past.
But it was not his sword. She examined it more closely. Who did it belong to? Skywalker, most likely. Obi-Wan must have kept it as a reminder of who he’d lost.
She sat down and stared at the lightsaber blankly. They made a fine team, Kenobi and Skywalker, the fabled general and the Hero With No Fear.
She recalled the onslaught of emotions she had experienced, having lost her Master. How hard had it been for Kenobi not to give in to anger?
So many questions she would never ask him.
She put the lightsaber back into its hiding place. Time to leave. He could come home any minute. She didn’t know what she could say to him if he found her here. After all, both of them had long since been dead.
* * *
She watched him across the cantina hall. He brought the cup up to his mouth and took a sip. He looked tense, as if on the alert, and she wondered if he had sensed her after all. She pulled the hood lower over her eyes.
And then she heard his voice.
A droid waiter rolled up to him and placed his order on the table.
“Thank you,” Obi-Wan said automatically.
She shot him a bewildered glance. It was almost like she’d forgotten he could speak. His voice sounded so familiar: gentle, sharp, with hints of underlying strength. These two words shot through her like a missile. Perhaps he should have perished in the Purges. The suffering was too great. How did you deal with it without seeking comforts of the Dark Side?
But that would never be an option for Obi-Wan. He was perhaps the only true Jedi: he knew all sorts of darkness, yet he resisted and he survived untainted.
She turned away, afraid his longing would somehow reach her across the hall and infect her. She could approach him now, touch his shoulder, tell him he wasn’t completely alone - in the end she still had him to thank for setting her free. She could; but she wouldn’t. Ghosts should not see other ghosts.
Ventress left the cantina and headed for the space port, bidding farewell to the blazing twin suns, the sweltering heat and the wretched Obi-Wan Kenobi who would still be there, across the universe, within an arm’s reach. Maybe someday when she felt braver; but not now.
October 1-2, 2009