jwaneeta

Wheeee -- the AD called. They've got at least three books for me to color before the season starts, and they've doubled my rate. The delay was about getting approval to do that. Contracts a-comin!

*faints with relief*

I was having anxiety attacks, having just dropped a massive chunk of tax money into the mailbox. My God, this weekend's starting to look a lot better. Like, nightmare-free.

So limp with relief, so very limp.

A follow up to my Mullet!Obi-Wan ficlet, which resembles it not at all in tone. It's sad, rather, and about saintliness.


***


Some Years Later
Obi-Wan, OC, no pairing
Rating: G
Two Years Pre RotS


****




Perfect. A perfect end to a perfectly foul week. Events were conspiring to chasten Dehaat Sundi for his sins, no doubt about it. A recall from a congenial assignment, a brutal stop-start relay across the galaxy on tramps, ore barges and shuttles, crowded, cold and and odiferous, nagged every step by repeated cyphers -- *Your presence is desired. You are overdue. Return with dispatch* -- and now, to stumble into the Temple footsore and travelstained, and to be greeted by Obi-Wan Kenobi, of all creatures living. Kenobi the proper, the priggish, the perfect, the supremely tiresome and insufferably correct. The Force had no pity. It was a pitiless Force.

"Knight Kenobi."

"Knight Sundi. How very well you look. Welcome! You've been badly wanted; we are blundering without you."

This warm effusion made Sundi wary. "Well, here I am."

"Here you are." Kenobi smiled as if this fact was a personal gift to him from a clement universe.

Sundi shouldered his bag over Kenobi's protests and they crossed into the main nave, the vastness swallowing their footfalls. Incense drifted: attar of roses. Dim figures paced the gallery above, vague in the holy gloom.

"That statue's new," noted Sundi.

"It's an eyesore. But our creative types want to be creating, and we must let them. They mean well."

Candor? What was the man up to? Sundi began to feel a definite sense of alarm. "How is your student, the prodigy?"

"Extremely huge, you know. Tallest human in the Order. And recently dubbed knight."

"Is that so? My congratulations."

"Thank you, thank you; he is already a great man. I was very priviledged. I miss him," added Kenobi.

A curious admission for any Jedi; bizarre coming from Kenobi. "Be of good cheer," said Sundi, despite himself. "Perhaps you will take missions together."

"Perhaps," said Kenobi. "We must all go where we are sent, but... well. Thank you for the thought."

Kenobi is dead, decided Sundi. He was murdered by stealth, and replaced by a clone, a plant, a zombie. This is not the man.

"We put you in the attic, I'm afraid," said Kenobi as they toiled up one final, endless staircase. "Will you join me for a meal, when you've rested?"

"Of course."

"Excellent, excellent." Kenobi grinned. "I'll brief you on the council's nefarious designs while we eat."

Sundi watched Kenobi's back until he turned a corner and vanished. Then Sundi's hands began to shake. Icy panic invaded his intestines, turning them into frozen knots.

They know. I'm ruined.

****

Silence had been suspended in the refectory, a concession to war. The hall buzzed with low conversation, through which the words "siege," "batallions," "casualties" and "clones" drifted, like leaves in a stream.

Sundi stared at a bowl of lentils and pale roots, unseasoned and thick as mud. The cooks, for their part, made no concessions to war. In peace and prosperity, in battle and woe, lentils boiled in the great vats of the Temple kitchens, filled its rafters with steam, and blighted the tables with their sad, bland, indomitable sameness.

Kenobi ate with energy and chatted of this and that: a surprise victory at the front, the recent surge in vocations. Force sensitive infants had always been rare blessings, but since the war began the nursery was filled to bursting. Hard times brought out the best in everyone, even possessive civilian parents. Such devotion, such selflessness, and on such a scale! It was truly a marvel.

Sundi listened with resignation, waiting for the blow, a condemned man. His indiscretions on Beriboo had been discovered -- of this he was now morally certain. The trap had closed. He had been lured back to be tried, disrobed and disgraced, and all that was left was to meet his fate standing.

Obi-Wan turned to the matter of scarce staffing, what with every able knight in the field, and Sundi allowed himself to think of Anthea. And Ebilese. And Lally. Exquisite creatures, but so young, carefree and vain. To return to any one of them -- to crawl back, broken and nameless -- was unthinkable. They wouldn't have him. He'd seen the last of Beriboo. Perhaps he could find employment as a bottom-caste gravesman on one of the cemetery worlds.

"About the council," began Obi-Wan.

Sundi laid his spoon down carefully and met his eyes. "Yes."

"They have called for you at the sixth hour. I cannot speak to their intent, but as a friend, if you'll permit me: please keep an open mind."

The sixth hour. Execution at dawn. A wave of utter despair rose in Sundi, a black, choking tide of sorrow and hopeless regret. Sundi kept his voice steady. "Of course."

A padawan materialized at Obi-Wan's elbow, etching a respectful bob of the head. "Master Kenobi, you are called to the docking bay. Knight Skywalker has landed for repairs."

Delight and concern chased over Kenobi's face. "Is he injured?"

"I don't know, Master, so sorry."

Kenobi excused himself and hurried away. Sundi stared at the padawan in shock. "Master? Master Kenobi?"

"Yes sir. He was raised a year ago. Teaches kata when he's not off fighting. He's really good."

"I called him Knight," choked Sundi. There would be no mercy, none.

The girl grinned. "That's funny. I bet he laughed. Oh," she added, alarmed at Sundi's expression. "Don't feel embarrassed, sir. Master Kenobi doesn't care about such things."


***

The doors to the council chamber were open. Pale morning light spilled into the hall, reaching for Sundi's feet. He forced himself forward, step by step, on watery legs.

Yoda, Windu, Koon: the usual suspects. The most conservative council in years, and bloodthirsty by all accounts. Sundi bowed.

"How did you find Beriboo?" asked Windu, clearly opening with sadism, always one to twist the knife.

"V-very well, Master. The holo unions are strong; the studios are profitable."

"Glad we are," croaked Yoda. "A fine job you have done."

Murmured assent. Sundi bowed again, yearning for it to be over swiftly.

"But though agree we do, that vital the entertainment industry is, other matters are pressing. War, for one."

"We are crying for teachers here," said Koon. "All our people are off playing soldier now."

"That is not to say that we resent our duty to the Republic." Windu shot Koon a sour look. "But we must take thought for the rising generation."

What were they talking about? Sundi fought to attend. Was this not the point at which they would demand his saber?

"You have been recommended to us as a skilled practitioner of the fifth form," said Koon. "We deeply regret terminating your assignment as a negotiator, a role you have filled with distinction, but the needs of our students come first."

"Difficult times sacrifices require," intoned Yoda. "Let duty console you, if a disappointment this is."

They were watching Sundi, now, waiting for a response. "Not at all,
Master. You honor me, Master. Thank you," he stammered, fighting a dizzy conviction of unreality.

"Master Kenobi will acquaint you with your duties." Windu raised a hand in dismissal. "May the Force be with you."

Sundi reeled out of the chamber and managed to reach the next level before he sank onto a bench, breathing in short, agonized gasps, and put his head in his hands.


****

"Knight Sundi, forgive the hour. My pad -- Knight Skywalker returned with injuries, and I've been loitering at the infirmary."

"Is he well?"

"Better than he deserves," replied Kenobi with a faint scowl. "May the Force teach him prudence; I surely could not."

"Master Kenobi, did you recommend me to the council?"

"I had that honor, yes," said Kenobi easily.

The empty salle smelled of stale exertion, of old sweat and old blows. Sundi tapped at a console and stared, unseeing, as a list of glowing names populated the screen. "Odd that you should remember this little hobby of mine, after so many years."

Kenobi hesitated. "I chanced to find myself on Beriboo not long ago, in an unofficial capacity. Your name was on everyone's lips."

"Ah."

"I made... certain inquiries, merely for my own peace of mind."

"I see."

Kenobi lifted his gaze to the ceiling, studied it with deep attention. "I have noticed, in myself, a temptation to surrender my identity out in the field. To immerse myself in the surrounding culture." Kenobi's hand sought his saber hilt absently. "Our life is by definition so solitary, the loneliness so keen -- well, it's only natural. It can happen by degrees, one can be scarcely aware of it. I narrowly escaped disaster on two separate occasions, and only with help."

"But you escaped?"

"By the grace of the Force I did. I have nothing of which to boast."

Sundi shut down the console and closed his eyes.

"Come," said Kenobi. "Let's go hear Common chant. It's a fine cure for insomnia, better than an intravenous drip."

As they paced through the deserted halls Sundi murmured, "I'd forgotten how silent the Temple can be, at night."

"It's a desert," sighed Kenobi. "I never fail to encounter my soul here, for good or ill."

Attendance at Chant was sparse: young, uncertain voices wavered like reeds beyond the ornate grill. Ancient custom asserted itself without volition, and Sundi sank into a posture of recollection.

"Ah, that's better," breathed Kenobi beside him, folding his arms like a man basking in the sunshine. "I miss this, when I'm away."

Verse, antiphon, verse, trading between the soft, earnest sections, dipping and rising, trading and merging -- the endless Psalter of the small hours. Sundi felt himself nodding; the chant, plaintive and monotonous, pressed on him like a golden weight. He heard a shy cough from a choir stall, a surreptitious footfall, a distant, echoing bell. The familiar scents of candle wax and drying flowers crept into his exhausted mind, summoning slow, changeful images of familiar and forgotten joys.

A bench creaked. The peace and sweetness were like a tidal bore, and Sundi offered no further resistance. In the very moment sleep took him he sensed Kenobi rise, make his obesiance, and ghost away.


END