Force Heritage: A Prelude To The Kenobi Way--Chapter 2
Title: Force Heritage: A Prelude To the Kenobi Way
Chapter Number: 2
Author: Lionchilde
Summary: Sequel to my Obidala epic One Path. On the way to the spaceport, Padme thinks about her children and makes some startling connections. Or perhaps not so startling.
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen/Some romance
Pairings/Characters: Obidala, Luke, Anakin Kenobi, mention of Leia and Bail Organa--possible appearances from them in later chapters.
A/N: Post Clone Wars era AU in an continuity with One Path| Notes on The Kenobi Way series can be found here.| Notes on Force Heritage can be found here.
*A small note to anyone who read chapter 1 earlier this week. I noticed a mistake that I should have picked up before posting. I'm not quite sure how I did it--I think it's related to the fact that I have another story with a boy about the age Luke is in this story. Anyway, One Path establishes that the twins are five years younger than little Ani. I knew that and even made a passing reference to the shared birthday in chapter 1. Yet, I wrote the entire chapter saying that Luke was 11 when he should logically have turned 12 already. The references have been edited, but I wanted to address it to readers in case anyone is confused later and wonders how Luke went from 11 to 12 in the story without appearing to have celebrated a birthday. >.<
Chapter 2
Padme listened with a mixture of amusement and mild disapproval as her husband recounted the way he had strung their boys along, allowing them to believe they might be able to convince him to take one or both to Mos Eisley with him. Luke’s dogged persistence especially made her laugh. She loved all her children equally, but Luke had a playful charm that reminded her very much of Anakin Skywalker. Leia and Ani were both very serious. Ani had his father’s quietly ironic sense of humor, which could surface suddenly and then dart away so quickly that it left people wondering if they had really heard the solemn teenager crack a joke. She couldn’t be completely sure what Leia was like anymore, since she hadn’t seen her daughter in almost four years. Before she left for Alderaan, Leia had been a handful. She was strong-willed and stubborn-a lot like Padme herself-but she had a firey temper where Padme usually remained calm and clear-headed. Even at eight years old, the little girl had displayed a sharp sarcastic wit, and she had loved to tease her twin brother. Luke was usually calm and fun-loving. Although he could he could tease his sister right back, he rarely got upset, and if he did, he tended to whine rather than shout the way Leia did. He was the only one of her children who would’ve tried to wheedle Obi Wan that way, and his lighthearted nature always lifted her spirits.
“Why didn’t you just tell them that I’d decided to go with you before you left this afternoon?” she asked her husband now, still laughing softly.
He shrugged and gave her a half-smile, explaining, “Well, they seemed to be enjoying themselves so much I didn’t want to spoil it by telling them I already had the best partner I could ask for going along.”
Padme felt her cheeks redden, and she lifted one hand to touch her face. Her smile became just a touch shy as she murmured, “Thank you, Obi Wan.”
“You’re welcome,” he smiled back.
“It probably wouldn’t have done much good for you to tell them I was coming anyway,” she remarked.
“Why not?” he asked, glancing at her in surprise.
“Because then they would have just decided that they needed to come along and keep me safe,” she explained.
“You have a point,” Obi Wan admitted wryly.
“Well,” Padme shrugged, her smile widening into a grin, “You certainly can’t fault their intentions.”
“No, I can’t,” agreed Obi Wan. “Especially not after all the times I asked Ani to watch over you during the Clone Wars. I think he just takes it as his job to protect you now. And Luke…”
Obi Wan let the sentence trail off, and she could hear a note of concern beneath the fondness in his tone. Luke was a very open and earnest boy, much more demonstrative of his feelings than Ani had been at his age. Obi Wan always struggled with that because he had been trained from early childhood to resist attachments and strong emotions. Luke respected and loved both of his parents, but he was outwardly closer to Padme, much as Anakin Skywalker had been with his mother, Shmi.
He had other traits that reminded her of Anakin as well. His tendency to be reckless worried her as she knew it did Obi Wan, but she chose not to dwell on that. He was young, and with the guidance of both parents and an older sibling like Ani, he was sure to outgrow-or tame- his impetuousness. He had the same kind and generous nature that Anakin had always possessed. Obi Wan often said that Luke came by those qualities from the Naberrie side of the family, and if Padme thought about it, she had to agree. Luke also reminded her of her father, Ruwee and her young niece, Pooja. Privately, she was sure that Obi Wan was also reminded of his old friend and former Padawan, but she never pressed the issue with him.
Anakin’s memory was still too painful for him. Sometimes, when he watched their two sons together, he would go very still and a haunted shadow would fall across his face. Obi Wan and Anakin’s relationship had always been complex. When Anakin was young, Obi Wan had been the only real father figure he knew. As both of them grew and matured, they became more like brothers, although there were plenty of times when Obi Wan still took a parental role. There were tensions as well, especially after Obi Wan left the Jedi Order to marry Padme, but in retrospect she believed that those problems would never have become so entrenched if Palpatine had not been manipulating Anakin and trying to set them against each other. They had loved each other deeply-so deeply in fact that Obi Wan had chosen to name his first child Anakin. Whatever differences they had, they were bound together with the respect and loyalty of people who had spent years training, travelling, and facing danger together for a common cause. At least, they had been before the Republic fell-before Mustafar.
Obi Wan couldn’t say it, but he still loved Anakin. At night, when farm chores were done and the family gathered in the privacy of their home, where whispers of such things couldn’t carry back to the Emperor, he and Padme made sure that their children remembered the Republic and the Jedi Knights who had served it so long and faithfully. Padme taught them about the importance of democracy and respect for all beings, hoping to guard their minds against the humanocentric imperialist doctrines that now pervaded the galaxy. She told them of her old colleagues in the Galactic Senate, Mon Mothma, Garm Bel Iblis, and Bail Organa, who had worked tirelessly to save the Republic from within but were now quietly-or not so quietly-building opposition to Palpatine’s regime. Obi Wan told them stories of his youth as Qui-Gon Jinn’s apprentice and then of his years as Jedi Knight with Anakin Skywalker at his side. He was a modest man, and he didn’t like to emphasize his own skills and contributions, so Anakin often appeared larger than life to them.
Ani was the only one who had ever known the man their father’s stories called Uncle Anakin. He had idolized both Anakin and Obi Wan as a boy, so he certainly didn’t mind having Anakin’s bravery and prowess as a Jedi extolled, but he tried to supplement Obi Wan’s versions of events with what he thought was a more balanced depiction of the famed Jedi Generals. The result was that the children-especially Luke and Leia-had a highly romanticized picture of what their father and uncle had been like during the Clone Wars.
Fortunately, anything that put Obi Wan in a central role also strongly emphasized the notion that fighting was only ever to be regarded as a last resort. So Padme didn’t worry too much that the kids would start to think of violence as acceptable. When the twins were younger, she had been a little concerned that their enthusiasm for “Kenobi & Skywalker” stories would cause trouble if they forgot and told the stories to their friends, but Obi Wan was convinced that it was important for them to know about their heritage as the last of the Jedi Order.
In the end there had never been a problem. Luke and Leia seemed to sense how vital it was that anything related to the Jedi or the Old Republic remain strictly within their family. Luke and his friends all talked about joining the Imperial Academy as pilots, but Jedi were not highly regarded in the Empire, so even if he would have been inclined to brag about having a team of famous fighter pilots in his family, he was less inclined to say things that would connect his dad to a Jedi Master.
Even so, he would have been proud to hear that he reminded anyone of “Uncle Anakin.” Padme hoped that someday Obi Wan would be able to acknowledge those similarities without viewing them as ominous portents of their child’s future. For the moment, she knew that it was best to keep her observations to herself. She had never even mentioned how telling she found it that Obi Wan never thought twice about using phrases like “your uncle” when he spoke of Anakin to his children.
He hadn’t told them about Mustafar, of course. The twins had been told that Anakin died saving their brother’s life. They knew that something terrible had happened to little Ani the night the Jedi Temple fell; they knew that the Temple siege had something to do with why Ani averred sunsets, and someday soon they would have to learn the whole truth. Yet Padme understood why Obi Wan was so reluctant to tell them.
She still remembered Ani’s quiet, plaintive statement on the night that the twins were born. He had been watching the sunset then, already determined to face his fears according to the teachings of the Jedi that he wanted to emulate. Padme had found him on a balcony at the Royal Palace on Alderaan where they were in hiding.
"Anakin?" she asked softly, hesitant to disturb him although she could sense that he was already troubled and upset.
The little boy turned toward the sound of his name and offered her a faint smile.
Padme moved out of the shadows and rested a hand on his shoulder, asking, "What are you doing out here, son?"
"Watching the sunset," Ani shrugged.
Padme pushed back her hood and smiled, moving her index finger to stroke his cheek, murmuring, "You don't have to, you know."
He rested his cheek against the swell of her pregnancy and hugged her as far as his arms would go, then replied, "Yes, I do, Mom. I'm a Jedi."
She felt her throat tighten at the statement. She hadn’t wanted her son to become a Jedi Knight, although at the time, her objections had been based on the reality that in order to become one, he would have to be sent to the Jedi Temple. Now there was no temple, and no Jedi Order other than Obi Wan, Yoda, and this little boy. She knew that there was no way to prevent him from following the Jedi path now, but while she had never objected to Ani learning the ways of the Force, she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and carry him away from all of this-someplace where there was no war, no Sith Emperor bent on eradicating all traces of the Jedi Order.
Instead, she forced her fingers to brush lightly through his hair. Her voice was steady and her tone was genuinely proud as she agreed, "Like your father before you."
"Luke and Leia will be, too. I saw them," he said.
"Did you have another dream?" she asked, referring to the Force-visions that both of them had from time to time.
He nodded, explaining, "I saw Anakin, too. Anakin and Obi-Wan. They're going to be brothers."
Now Padme wrapped her arms around him, hugging him with all her strength, telling him, "I know you miss your uncle, Ani. It's all right to miss him. Letting go doesn't have to mean you don't miss someone. It just-means that you accept what you can't change."
"Nobody will remember him," he sighed sadly. "Nobody will remember that he saved me."
Padme didn't speak for several heartbeats. Then she murmured quietly, "I'll remember, Ani."
She had kept that promise, and so had Obi Wan in his own way. He wanted to make sure that the twins knew and understood who Anakin Skywalker had been before he burdened them with the truth about Darth Vader. Knowing that, she slipped her hand across the worn seat of the family speeder and squeezed his fingers, as she reminded him of something he’d told her long ago.
“Obi Wan. No matter what happens tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or five years from now, you and I will be together. And as long as we are together, we have nothing to fear.”
Chapter Number: 2
Author: Lionchilde
Summary: Sequel to my Obidala epic One Path. On the way to the spaceport, Padme thinks about her children and makes some startling connections. Or perhaps not so startling.
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen/Some romance
Pairings/Characters: Obidala, Luke, Anakin Kenobi, mention of Leia and Bail Organa--possible appearances from them in later chapters.
A/N: Post Clone Wars era AU in an continuity with One Path| Notes on The Kenobi Way series can be found here.| Notes on Force Heritage can be found here.
*A small note to anyone who read chapter 1 earlier this week. I noticed a mistake that I should have picked up before posting. I'm not quite sure how I did it--I think it's related to the fact that I have another story with a boy about the age Luke is in this story. Anyway, One Path establishes that the twins are five years younger than little Ani. I knew that and even made a passing reference to the shared birthday in chapter 1. Yet, I wrote the entire chapter saying that Luke was 11 when he should logically have turned 12 already. The references have been edited, but I wanted to address it to readers in case anyone is confused later and wonders how Luke went from 11 to 12 in the story without appearing to have celebrated a birthday. >.<
Chapter 2
Padme listened with a mixture of amusement and mild disapproval as her husband recounted the way he had strung their boys along, allowing them to believe they might be able to convince him to take one or both to Mos Eisley with him. Luke’s dogged persistence especially made her laugh. She loved all her children equally, but Luke had a playful charm that reminded her very much of Anakin Skywalker. Leia and Ani were both very serious. Ani had his father’s quietly ironic sense of humor, which could surface suddenly and then dart away so quickly that it left people wondering if they had really heard the solemn teenager crack a joke. She couldn’t be completely sure what Leia was like anymore, since she hadn’t seen her daughter in almost four years. Before she left for Alderaan, Leia had been a handful. She was strong-willed and stubborn-a lot like Padme herself-but she had a firey temper where Padme usually remained calm and clear-headed. Even at eight years old, the little girl had displayed a sharp sarcastic wit, and she had loved to tease her twin brother. Luke was usually calm and fun-loving. Although he could he could tease his sister right back, he rarely got upset, and if he did, he tended to whine rather than shout the way Leia did. He was the only one of her children who would’ve tried to wheedle Obi Wan that way, and his lighthearted nature always lifted her spirits.
“Why didn’t you just tell them that I’d decided to go with you before you left this afternoon?” she asked her husband now, still laughing softly.
He shrugged and gave her a half-smile, explaining, “Well, they seemed to be enjoying themselves so much I didn’t want to spoil it by telling them I already had the best partner I could ask for going along.”
Padme felt her cheeks redden, and she lifted one hand to touch her face. Her smile became just a touch shy as she murmured, “Thank you, Obi Wan.”
“You’re welcome,” he smiled back.
“It probably wouldn’t have done much good for you to tell them I was coming anyway,” she remarked.
“Why not?” he asked, glancing at her in surprise.
“Because then they would have just decided that they needed to come along and keep me safe,” she explained.
“You have a point,” Obi Wan admitted wryly.
“Well,” Padme shrugged, her smile widening into a grin, “You certainly can’t fault their intentions.”
“No, I can’t,” agreed Obi Wan. “Especially not after all the times I asked Ani to watch over you during the Clone Wars. I think he just takes it as his job to protect you now. And Luke…”
Obi Wan let the sentence trail off, and she could hear a note of concern beneath the fondness in his tone. Luke was a very open and earnest boy, much more demonstrative of his feelings than Ani had been at his age. Obi Wan always struggled with that because he had been trained from early childhood to resist attachments and strong emotions. Luke respected and loved both of his parents, but he was outwardly closer to Padme, much as Anakin Skywalker had been with his mother, Shmi.
He had other traits that reminded her of Anakin as well. His tendency to be reckless worried her as she knew it did Obi Wan, but she chose not to dwell on that. He was young, and with the guidance of both parents and an older sibling like Ani, he was sure to outgrow-or tame- his impetuousness. He had the same kind and generous nature that Anakin had always possessed. Obi Wan often said that Luke came by those qualities from the Naberrie side of the family, and if Padme thought about it, she had to agree. Luke also reminded her of her father, Ruwee and her young niece, Pooja. Privately, she was sure that Obi Wan was also reminded of his old friend and former Padawan, but she never pressed the issue with him.
Anakin’s memory was still too painful for him. Sometimes, when he watched their two sons together, he would go very still and a haunted shadow would fall across his face. Obi Wan and Anakin’s relationship had always been complex. When Anakin was young, Obi Wan had been the only real father figure he knew. As both of them grew and matured, they became more like brothers, although there were plenty of times when Obi Wan still took a parental role. There were tensions as well, especially after Obi Wan left the Jedi Order to marry Padme, but in retrospect she believed that those problems would never have become so entrenched if Palpatine had not been manipulating Anakin and trying to set them against each other. They had loved each other deeply-so deeply in fact that Obi Wan had chosen to name his first child Anakin. Whatever differences they had, they were bound together with the respect and loyalty of people who had spent years training, travelling, and facing danger together for a common cause. At least, they had been before the Republic fell-before Mustafar.
Obi Wan couldn’t say it, but he still loved Anakin. At night, when farm chores were done and the family gathered in the privacy of their home, where whispers of such things couldn’t carry back to the Emperor, he and Padme made sure that their children remembered the Republic and the Jedi Knights who had served it so long and faithfully. Padme taught them about the importance of democracy and respect for all beings, hoping to guard their minds against the humanocentric imperialist doctrines that now pervaded the galaxy. She told them of her old colleagues in the Galactic Senate, Mon Mothma, Garm Bel Iblis, and Bail Organa, who had worked tirelessly to save the Republic from within but were now quietly-or not so quietly-building opposition to Palpatine’s regime. Obi Wan told them stories of his youth as Qui-Gon Jinn’s apprentice and then of his years as Jedi Knight with Anakin Skywalker at his side. He was a modest man, and he didn’t like to emphasize his own skills and contributions, so Anakin often appeared larger than life to them.
Ani was the only one who had ever known the man their father’s stories called Uncle Anakin. He had idolized both Anakin and Obi Wan as a boy, so he certainly didn’t mind having Anakin’s bravery and prowess as a Jedi extolled, but he tried to supplement Obi Wan’s versions of events with what he thought was a more balanced depiction of the famed Jedi Generals. The result was that the children-especially Luke and Leia-had a highly romanticized picture of what their father and uncle had been like during the Clone Wars.
Fortunately, anything that put Obi Wan in a central role also strongly emphasized the notion that fighting was only ever to be regarded as a last resort. So Padme didn’t worry too much that the kids would start to think of violence as acceptable. When the twins were younger, she had been a little concerned that their enthusiasm for “Kenobi & Skywalker” stories would cause trouble if they forgot and told the stories to their friends, but Obi Wan was convinced that it was important for them to know about their heritage as the last of the Jedi Order.
In the end there had never been a problem. Luke and Leia seemed to sense how vital it was that anything related to the Jedi or the Old Republic remain strictly within their family. Luke and his friends all talked about joining the Imperial Academy as pilots, but Jedi were not highly regarded in the Empire, so even if he would have been inclined to brag about having a team of famous fighter pilots in his family, he was less inclined to say things that would connect his dad to a Jedi Master.
Even so, he would have been proud to hear that he reminded anyone of “Uncle Anakin.” Padme hoped that someday Obi Wan would be able to acknowledge those similarities without viewing them as ominous portents of their child’s future. For the moment, she knew that it was best to keep her observations to herself. She had never even mentioned how telling she found it that Obi Wan never thought twice about using phrases like “your uncle” when he spoke of Anakin to his children.
He hadn’t told them about Mustafar, of course. The twins had been told that Anakin died saving their brother’s life. They knew that something terrible had happened to little Ani the night the Jedi Temple fell; they knew that the Temple siege had something to do with why Ani averred sunsets, and someday soon they would have to learn the whole truth. Yet Padme understood why Obi Wan was so reluctant to tell them.
She still remembered Ani’s quiet, plaintive statement on the night that the twins were born. He had been watching the sunset then, already determined to face his fears according to the teachings of the Jedi that he wanted to emulate. Padme had found him on a balcony at the Royal Palace on Alderaan where they were in hiding.
"Anakin?" she asked softly, hesitant to disturb him although she could sense that he was already troubled and upset.
The little boy turned toward the sound of his name and offered her a faint smile.
Padme moved out of the shadows and rested a hand on his shoulder, asking, "What are you doing out here, son?"
"Watching the sunset," Ani shrugged.
Padme pushed back her hood and smiled, moving her index finger to stroke his cheek, murmuring, "You don't have to, you know."
He rested his cheek against the swell of her pregnancy and hugged her as far as his arms would go, then replied, "Yes, I do, Mom. I'm a Jedi."
She felt her throat tighten at the statement. She hadn’t wanted her son to become a Jedi Knight, although at the time, her objections had been based on the reality that in order to become one, he would have to be sent to the Jedi Temple. Now there was no temple, and no Jedi Order other than Obi Wan, Yoda, and this little boy. She knew that there was no way to prevent him from following the Jedi path now, but while she had never objected to Ani learning the ways of the Force, she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and carry him away from all of this-someplace where there was no war, no Sith Emperor bent on eradicating all traces of the Jedi Order.
Instead, she forced her fingers to brush lightly through his hair. Her voice was steady and her tone was genuinely proud as she agreed, "Like your father before you."
"Luke and Leia will be, too. I saw them," he said.
"Did you have another dream?" she asked, referring to the Force-visions that both of them had from time to time.
He nodded, explaining, "I saw Anakin, too. Anakin and Obi-Wan. They're going to be brothers."
Now Padme wrapped her arms around him, hugging him with all her strength, telling him, "I know you miss your uncle, Ani. It's all right to miss him. Letting go doesn't have to mean you don't miss someone. It just-means that you accept what you can't change."
"Nobody will remember him," he sighed sadly. "Nobody will remember that he saved me."
Padme didn't speak for several heartbeats. Then she murmured quietly, "I'll remember, Ani."
She had kept that promise, and so had Obi Wan in his own way. He wanted to make sure that the twins knew and understood who Anakin Skywalker had been before he burdened them with the truth about Darth Vader. Knowing that, she slipped her hand across the worn seat of the family speeder and squeezed his fingers, as she reminded him of something he’d told her long ago.
“Obi Wan. No matter what happens tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or five years from now, you and I will be together. And as long as we are together, we have nothing to fear.”