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Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Obi-Wan/Atréyu

Summary: Six years after Qui-Gon's death, a distraught Knight Kenobi makes some unexpected discoveries after crash-landing on an insignificant little green planet...

Notes: Yes yes yes - the mighty Kylara Dee and I have decided to momentarily swap places! She's writing a PWP as we speak, and I've had to exorcise this angsty convoluted monster... :)

In a way, this is a TPM/Neverending Story crossover, set six years after the end of the former and some ten years after the end of the latter though. Erm, does that make sense? Nah, I don't think so. Aaaaaanyway, Obi-Wan and Anakin are George Lucas' boys of course, and Atréyu and Caíron are Michael Ende's, complete with the silly accents. I would have asked you for permission, mate, but you went and joined the Force some years ago... *sigh*

Feedback: Dying for it... keep me alive!! :)

"My Padawan is not a whore." Obi-Wan did his best to put as much obsidian smoothness into his voice as was humanly possible, determined to defeat the slimy Degujapa emissary by sheer embarrassment. No, whatever the fish-lipped diplomat being may have thought, of course it had not escaped Obi-Wan how his Padawan had been the centre of attention during the negotiations. Lecherous attention.

Not that he could blame them for bad taste - Anakin had grown into a fine young man... oh, I sound like a doting grandmother even thinking that, Obi-Wan chided himself. The lad is taller than me now, and will be one hell of a graceful long-limbed fighter one day. And he does have a smile that might well be capable of melting mountains if pressed. Not to mention lush lips, deep brown eyes under extremely talkative brows, and a brush-cut of hair that had deepened into a rich nut brown once the twin suns of Tatooine had stopped bleaching it. He's probably the only one in the Order with a two-tone Padawan braid, Obi-Wan thought, and a slight smile quirked his lips. He remembered himself at 15, Anakin's present age, and he certainly had not been this graceful then, soaking up the adoration in such a seductively humble way as his Padawan did now. A fetching sight even in his terminally decent Jedi robes. Or maybe because of the robes - the Degujapae thought highly of respectability, which made them even more ravenous for forbidden pleasures, and pretty Jedi Padawans appeared to count as such.

Obi-Wan spent a long minute staring after the emissary, watching his clumsy steps as he retreated into the safety of the reception area of the Embassy. By virtue of his girth alone that man could have counted as a small committee, much more so if one considered the sheer schizophrenia he had displayed during the talks. Always keeping his watery green eyes on the main chance and all secondary ones simultaneously... it had taken a great deal of Obi-Wan's negotiation skills just to keep track of him, and in a way that had been good. At least it gave Anakin the necessary breaches to exercise his own diplomatic skills, which hadn't happened often in the past. Damn, do I need a fat diplomatic sleazeball like that to give my Padawan the rein he needs, Obi-Wan thought miserably as he watched Anakin mingle with the younger crowd, ambassadors' offspring mostly but also serving staff and a small red cube-shaped being of indeterminate status and occupation.

On the whole, the mission had been a failure. Oh, of course they had managed to settle the dispute in a matter of days, reconciling the Degujapae's moral standards to those of their neighbours in a tricky censorship/trade issue. That was why they were at this party now, after all.

Personally, however, it had been a failure. Six years into his Knighthood, Obi-Wan had finally given in to the Council's pummelling and accepted the first pair mission on their own, without being part of a larger team of Jedi. Without chaperones, in effect. And look at me now, a fully grown Jedi Knight away from his nannies for the first time in ages, he thought bitterly. Has it really been six years? Force. But yeah, we had my thirtieth naming day just a few weeks ago... of course, Bant had organised a surprise bash because she knew I wouldn't have bothered about one myself. I would have been perfectly happy just lying in bed all day, nursing the fresh wound on my hip where the twelfth link of the chain tattoo lay, wallowing in self-pity and not seeing anyone all day, especially not anyone calling me Master.

Anakin doesn't deserve me, he thought, watching with half an eye as the young Jedi conversed animatedly with the diplomatic set, not a thirty-year-old acting like a six-year-old half the time. And making up for it by being at least sixty the rest of the time. Overprotective is probably what you call it, he mused, half wishing the Council would take pity on him and relieve him of this overly bright Padawan, this crushing responsibility, this beautiful burden. If it hadn't been for Anakin I'd be roughing it on some Force-forsaken jungle planet breeding eggplants and talking to animals, he thought, out of the Order, out of order, out of sight, out of mind. Out of my mind. That would feel good. He sighed. Not that there is any way I could let go of Anakin. I promised. Promised him.

I really don't know where all the time went, he thought, for probably the thousandth time in those six years. Was it really six years since Qui-Gon had... died? Anakin's braid reached down to his nipples now, and he spoke fluent Corellian and had mastered the first and second Form besides the required katas. He was outgrowing regulation tunics at an alarming speed and showed no signs of slowing, he had had an intense crush on Master Koon's third Padawan, and he had at one point charmed the whole Temple into submission with the result of his breeding experiments involving Kanacc birds, producing sleek white creatures with deep blue wings that sang as they flew, beautiful skittery unheard-of songs echoing through the ancient halls. He had set the birds free in the end, or attempted to. Some of them kept returning.

Obi-Wan sighed deeply, again. The only way he knew how to keep time these days was through his Padawan. Anakin ate time, and made it into something fast and shy and beautiful, like birds. Obi-Wan himself... eluded time. There's no way I can have time, least of all a good time, he thought, when it drips on to me and off me like water off a rock.

It may have been time, some time, that dulled the jagged edges of the pain inside him, it may have been time that untied some of the connections. Not everything reminded him of Qui-Gon any more, and he wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. He wasn't sure what a good thing or a bad thing was. Time dripped into him and out of him like water onto a rock, and he felt himself caving in under the insistent drip, hollowing out. Empty.

"Master? Are you not well?" A slim hand settled on his upper arm, and Obi-Wan realised he had clenched his arms around himself in frustration, as if trying to contain the hollowness within, trying to keep it from slipping out and terrifying Anakin. He relaxed a little and looked up from his melancholy into the concerned face of his Padawan. "Shall we retire, Master? Would give me a nice excuse not hang around that awful Degujapa guy's field of vision any more... that one's enough to dull anyone's sex drive for a year, and frankly I'd rather be out of here before he kicks up a diplomatic incident over my ass!" Obi-Wan could not help grinning at his Padawan's unaccustomed frankness, and nodded weakly at the suggestion, then made his excuses to the presiding ambassadors, citing an early departure the next morning, and made his way back to their quarters, Anakin in tow.

Obi-Wan busied himself with packing while his Padawan showered, finding solace in the methodically mindless work and the knowledge that they'd soon be back in the Temple where Anakin could learn and spar and make friends to his heart's desire without having to rely on his pathetic prematurely aged Master. Bags packed, he undressed quickly and waited for Anakin to free the shower, then scrubbed the diplomatic slime off himself under a jet of steaming hot water. Towelling himself off, he cast a glance into the mirror and saw - nothing. How symbolic, he thought, then rubbed a window into the steamed-up plane and set about trimming his beard, trying not to think too much of how Qui-Gon's beard had felt, and his own smooth cheeks against it. He had given up telling himself that this sort of thought would not lead him anywhere, as there wasn't anywhere to be led anyway. With a beard, he reminded himself of Qui-Gon's face, and without one he reminded himself of his happier days as his Padawan and lover. He kept his hair at an uncertain mid-length just to avoid choosing between painfully beautiful memories of his Master's hair silkily streaming all over his hyper-sensitised skin and equally painfully beautiful memories of Qui-Gon's huge hands fondly stroking his spiky Padawan cut.

There is no middle ground, there is only the Force. Keeping me afloat. Suspended animation. Obi-Wan wiped the mirror with the wet towel, as much to clean it as to wipe away the mirror image of his face, a hollow man under that serene Jedi Knight's countenance.

Dusk was falling over the city when he emerged from the 'fresher, long light trickling in through the high open windows and reaching out playful languid fingers for his pale skin. He shuddered, and the light shied away, pooling instead at the feet of his adorable Padawan, crouching on the windowsill in nothing but his sleep pants, hair still wet and crowned with a noisy and fidgety assembly of birds of all shapes and colours, seemingly engaged in a lively argument about who would have pride of place on Anakin's head, while the young Jedi himself was busy cooing to a straggly green specimen with uncannily long purple tail feathers, perched on his hand and excitedly cooing back.

Birds. Obi-Wan had never been sure whether Anakin had taken to birds or whether the birds had taken to Anakin. They seemed to regard him as one of their own, and they had a point. There was hardly a more birdlike personality in the whole Temple than this light-hearted, flighty Padawan, given to extraordinary flights of fancy, soaring above his year-mates, and lest we forget, an accomplished flyer since the age of nine. And just as fidgety as the little bird souls, the fight-or-flight reflex personified. Anakin could extricate himself out of any situation by just flying, absconding himself leaving only a fleeting impression, and he made use of that facility abundantly, favouring hiding over confrontation, a quick flight over a series of advancing steps. Master a lion, Padawan a bird, Obi-Wan mused. What does that make me?

Carefully, he advanced towards the surreal scene, and of course he succeeded in scaring all the birds into flight at the first possible opportunity. Damn. The worst part was watching Anakin's face contort in sympathetic fear, and knowing that he would not be able to tell the boy off for it. Seconds later, the birds were resettling, as was Anakin's face. "Master, would you do me the favour of replaiting my braid?" - "Nothing I'd rather do, Padawan. I see you've found new friends - any better than the diplomatic corpse?" Both men chuckled at Obi-Wan's lame pun, and the Knight gingerly settled down on the windowsill next to his apprentice, braiding his brown-to-blonde hair with skilful hands. "Yeah, it's nothing I did, but... they just flock to me, you know?", he attempted a shrug without disturbing Obi-Wan's braiding and failed, "it's as if they seek me out, anything small and airborne really. Remember the tiny pterosaurs that invaded the dorm on Websa Minor and totally freaked Master Ru? It's nothing I did, I swear." The smile on Anakin's face could have won him any number of beauty contests, kingdoms or lovers, and Obi-Wan basked in the obvious pleasure he took in the memory of that silly little incident months ago.

"It's never been anything you did, Padawan. It's something you are." - "You're not trying to tell me I'm a bird, right Master? Or was one in a previous life or some such esoteric shmoo, excuse my Huttese? I guess it's just that they... like me. Like I like them. But I like cherry pies too, and that doesn't mean I am one, does it?" - Obi-Wan snorted in amusement at the image. "Padawan. These birds do not care for your spoken preferences, nor for your fondness of them, however many times you tell them that in our language or in what you imagine to be theirs."

Anakin looked crestfallen as Obi-Wan continued, tying the end of his Padawan's braid off with a thin white ribbon. "The connection between you and these birds is not one of mind, Anakin, but one of soul, immune to likes or dislikes. The soul is an animal, Padawan, barely controlled and bristling with the Living Force. It can tear you inside out without a moment's notice - " Force knows it's done that to me, Obi-Wan thought bitterly, "or send you soaring away to unknown heights. What you spend your precious youth on learning is how to ride this animal, how to follow the wild meandering path your soul gallops along towards the light. Without falling off." There, awfully poetic, Kenobi, but pretty accurate.

Anakin looked thoughtful for a long moment, watched intently by the fidgeting birds perched on his head and shoulder. The straggly green one on his hand ruffled its feathers and started picking at Anakin's braid, startling him out of his momentary meditation. "Thank you, Master. Can I interest you in a chocolate?" Obi-Wan gazed incredulously from Anakin's sweet keen smile to the box of sweets that had suddenly materialised in his hand. A soul like a bird, and a mind like a bird too. Flitting from thoughts of great importance to chocolate-covered inanities. "They arrived while you were in the shower, by courier. He didn't give a sender or anything, but I think it's safe to assume they came from that blobby emissary who's doubtless dreaming of smearing the chocolate all over me right now. And it's even safer to assume I don't even want to imagine that. These little round ones are quite nice actually..."

Wearily, Obi-Wan declined the offer, wordlessly probed for any traces of poison, and found nothing. Especially, he didn't find it in his heart to lecture his bird-souled Padawan about the dangers of accepting gifts from strangers. He didn't find anything in his heart any more these days. A stony hollow, an empty lair. The animal was nowhere to be seen.

Hyperspace. Easily the most boring place to be, and yet to Obi-Wan it had come to hold a certain sense of comfort, if only for being the only place where he was completely surrounded by a void that made the emptiness in his heart seem petty by comparison. He was staring out of the starship's narrow window, a luxury in the age of wide-spectrum display screens, letting the bright microdots of illusionary stars streak through him, hoping against hope that some of the solid brightness might catch and get stuck inside him somehow.

He'd set the ship to automatic pilot, dimmed as many of the visual controls and displays as possible and let himself drift away on his melancholy, idly calculating the probability that one of the ten gas molecules per cubic mile out here could once, years ago, have been breathed... in... by... Qui-Gon...

He woke with a start at the sound of his forehead hitting the touchpad that controlled the cabin lighting, and blinked furiously at his own carelessness. What time was it anyway? Obi-Wan got out of the pilot's seat, stretched painfully, tried in vain to give his crumpled tunics some semblance of perfunctory Jedi dignity, then scanned the dozens of displays and viewscreens for a chrono. Anakin was so much better at this that Obi-Wan hardly ever got to fly anything, and he suspected his annoyingly bright Padawan had actually designed and built most of these dazzlingly confusing instruments himself. The unholy amount of time he spent at the hangars and spaceship workshops seemed to indicate that.

Intricate multi-level diagrams of the ship's propulsion system. Star-charts with freely adjustable perspectives. Conversion routines for assorted lengths, weights and measurements of time. But no such simple thing as a chronometer. Apparently, so the friendly but smug flicker on the green screen said, a standard year was equal to one-fifty-second part of an Imix-Cauac, the measurement of time in the system they would be closest to if they were to drop out of hyperspace now. "Time... time..." Obi-Wan had hardly realised his absent-minded mutter when a bright synthetic female voice answered his every question. "Seventeen-hundred local ship time, fourteen point seven standard hours from departure, estimated time to arrival at Coruscant one day and one point four standard hours, Knight Kenobi." Damn. Did this thing have some sort of voice recognition mechanism? Obi-Wan's awe at his Padawan's technical skills grew infinitely, and almost matched the weariness that finally broke through at the realisation that he had been at the controls for fourteen point something hours.

Of course Anakin had retired to bed straight after departure. It had been two a.m. local time, and his Padawan had rightly declared, in a sleepy murmur, that this was not a time for a Jedi to be out and about, and promptly sought out the ship's bunks. However, fourteen hours of solid sleep on top of half a night in bed were more than even Anakin could justify, growing pains and all. Whatever he was doing in that bunk of his, he might as well do it in the cockpit and allow his Master some well-deserved sleep. Yes, that was what Obi-Wan would say. With a contented yawn he padded along the short echoey corridor to Anakin's quarters.

"Still in bed, Padawan? Maybe you should get your fabulous talking chrono to remind you that you are in fact fifteen years old, not fifteen days, and therefore can well afford to get out there and do some flying and allow your old and decrepit master some rest, wouldn't you... say..." Obi-Wan's voice trailed off into silence as he set eyes on Anakin's face. No reaction. He lay on his back, eyes open and glazed, breath coming slowly and shallowly from between parched and broken lips edged with tiny patches of a yellow rash deepening to orange at the edges. "Anakin! Padawan, can you hear me??" Obi-Wan shook the lanky body. It went limp in his arms, and a cough wrestled its way from the dry throat. "We.... must... thread the flowers onto their neighbours' forks. All.... all of them..."

Obi-Wan instinctively laid a palm on his Padawan's forehead and almost recoiled in horror at the heat. This was no ordinary fever, this was fit to burn all sensible thought up in a raging firestorm of madness. This temperature was not worth measuring, it was certain to be at the very limit of what the human body could bear, and probably a little beyond that. Anakin had always been tolerant of heat... casting around for some water, Obi-Wan desperately tried to keep his Padawan's warped consciousness going, afraid of losing him totally. "Yes, Padawan... we will do that. Eventually. First I think we should water the flowers, don't you think?" A greedy look from Anakin's near-black eyes showed Obi-Wan that the boy's basic needs were still intact, at least. "Riding the dead waterfalls... is... is... exhausting for... most hearers... the little people... will disguise their pharmacies... as... sleeping beauty criminals... when the speeders... come to... contain them..."

Obi-Wan listened with growing concern to Anakin's delirious murmurs while filling a pitcher with water and dialling for the ship's rudimentary medical droid. He tore off his belt, unwound his sash and soaked it with cold water, then placed it on Anakin's head. He had half expected a hiss of evaporation and a cloud of steam; instead, the water trickled down Anakin's face in glistening rivulets, eagerly soaked up by the glowing skin. "The criminals will be all right, Padawan," Obi-Wan managed between clenched teeth as he strained to lift the boy to an upright position with one arm without letting the soaked sash slide off his forehead. Anakin drank greedily, almost forgetting to breathe, and when he finally sank down on to the sheets again, Obi-Wan gingerly checked the pulse at his throat.

It was racing like he'd never felt a heart race before, not in the middle of a fierce 'sabre training session, not even at the cusp of ecstasy in Qui-Gon's arms. Not even during that fight in the generator room on Naboo. This heartbeat was ready to escape its host body, ready to take flight, heating the trembling fevered boy beyond the imaginable and sending his mind into hallucinations. At least he's dreaming generic weird stuff, Obi-Wan thought bitterly. I'm sure my own hallucinations wouldn't be this pleasant.

The medical droid arrived with a purposeful buzz and proceeded to check all the same things that Obi-Wan had surveyed already. Sadly, this was a standard-issue robot as provided by the Temple, not one of Anakin's ingenious constructions. There was no arguing with this one, even as its diagnosis screen came up blank and it proceeded to administer a shot to Anakin's limp arm, explaining in a small dark blue and half-apologetic typeface that "Fever. If not lower within standard hour one, consult immediately Level 3 Healer." Obi-Wan cursed the smug little machine and its half-brained constructor (a member of Yoda's species judging from the grammar. Or something that spoke in visuals rather than acoustics and had to be translated. Badly.) and settled down on the floor next to his Padawan's bunk, ready to spend the next 'Standard Hour One' discussing pharmacies disguised as criminals for the sake of Anakin's consciousness.

"What do you mean, you've only got one of these?" Obi-Wan was well aware he was yelling at the little droid, but he was well past caring by now, frayed at the edges from lack of sleep and having to keep up fevered conversations with his hallucinating Padawan. The droid remained dignified and repeated its last display message: "Fevers that not lower due after administering R54 do consult Healer Level 3 immediately. R54 no effect on." Obi-Wan groaned. Anakin had drunk three pitchers of water over the past hour, and Obi-Wan had constantly been changing the cooling cloth on his forehead and moistening his clothes, and yet Anakin had showed no signs of calming, the fever raging through his veins like fire, now plunging him into dream worlds, now scaring him with hallucinations that made him start and bolt, and Obi-Wan had had to use all of his fading strength to keep Anakin in bed, and himself awake. Where in all the Sith hells was he to find a Level 3 Healer here, in the middle of nowhere? They were fifteen hours from Degujapa, and still just over a day from Coruscant, and either of these options seemed improbable given Anakin's state. He was visibly wasting away by now, evaporating into the thick humid air of his chamber. What would happen if he fell unconscious Obi-Wan dared not imagine...

Healers. Nobody in this sector might even know humanoid anatomy, let alone have an idea where this fever could have come from. Hells, Obi-Wan had no idea himself. He must have caught it on that planet, and chances are I'll catch it myself if we stay on this ship for much longer. Healers. Anyone. Anyone.

It is no use, he thought. We might as well drop out of hyperspace and hope we don't materialise in the middle of a planet.

Reluctantly, Obi-Wan left his Padawan's sickbed, then thought better of it and hefted the thin boy over his shoulder - had he grown lighter since last night? - and carried him to the cockpit, made him as comfortable as possible in the pilot's seat and continued exchanging inanities with him while manoeuvring the ship out of hyperspace, standing bent over the controls. As soon as the star-streaks congealed into pinpoints of light, he cast around the control room for a round view of the area, and let out a half-choked sigh of relief.

Force bless. There was a planet, and life forms on it. That would have to do. Grimly discussing the necessity of light blue tapioca on nails with a delirious Anakin, Obi-Wan steered the ship towards what looked like dry land. He managed little more than an emergency landing; he had never been a good pilot at the best of times, much less now with a terminally ill Padawan in tow and several hours of sleep missing and not a good quiet meditation for six years. Unstable, that's what I am, he thought to himself as the ship near-crashed on what had appeared to be the planet's surface but was in fact a dense growth of greyish-green grass taller than the ship. Stay together, Kenobi, if not for your own sake, then for Anakin's. You promised Qui-Gon, damn it.

Soaking his sash with fresh cool water one last time, he gently unwound Anakin's black one from around his waist and put it on himself. Might as well look dignified if there's anyone out there, he thought, then leapt out of the hatch into the unfamiliar atmosphere.

The air was warm, moist and clean-scented, soothing Obi-Wan's burning lungs as he raced through the forest of grass, finding his way with the Force. There would have been no other way - all of space, in every direction, was taken up by the web of long thin whispering blades of grass whipping his face and hands as he ran towards the glittering conglomeration of Living Force he sensed nearby. How he would find his way back to the ship was anyone's guess, especially if Anakin didn't manage to stay conscious. Let that trouble you nearer the time, he thought, keep your concentration in the here and now where it belongs. Hah. If only Qui-Gon were here now...

Instead, there was the small gazelle-like body of a young female connecting with his at top speed, knocking the breath out of him in a surprised whoosh. How did anyone here ever manage not to run into each other, was his first thought, then his mind turned around to face the girl, staring at him with an amusing mixture of astonishment and fascination, slanted brown eyes open wide in an olive-skinned face adorned with two crude dabs of white paint on her cheeks. Her hair was long and so black as to be nearly blue, and it trailed behind her as she bolted away from Obi-Wan, beckoning him to follow her.

He did his best to keep up with her as she insinuated her way through the grass, as if knowing by instinct which way it would bend. The path she chose began to open up into something more reminiscent of an actual path, then suddenly the sunlight hit his face as they emerged on to a wide clearing. As he followed the girl's naked olive-green feet, still running at an improbable speed, he dimly noticed how the grass had not so much been cut as plaited to allow for this path to be formed. He was running along on a firm surface of braided strands of the tough grey-green grass, and all the surrounding growth that had not been reined in to the making of the road had been woven and plaited into the walls of huts and houses, low stable-like hovels and high conical tents and wide palatial residences, all the colour of the perennial grass.

On a bit of artfully interwoven empty ground in front of what seemed to Obi-Wan to be the largest of the houses, the girl suddenly stopped and raised her voice into a series of articulate but utterly incomprehensible noises. She didn't seem to be talking to him, in fact she averted her eyes every time he looked at her, perhaps bashful at her earlier curiosity.

There were more curious heads staring now, as one by one the inhabitants emerged from the surrounding houses and huts and tents and whatnots, all olive-green and black-haired, dressed in skirts and leggings of a coarse wine-red fabric and inscribed with simple symbols in white, and all of them chattering in a lilting melodic language, combining their minds, trying to get their collective heads around the idea of a complete stranger in their midst, wearing, and being, all the wrong colours, pale and drawn and looking at them pleadingly trying to work out a way of suggesting to them that they follow him back to the ship. Instead, the softly surging wave of olive-green bodies began nudging Obi-Wan further towards the middle of the village, chattering excitedly, some of the more daring hands touching his robe or hands shyly. Obi-Wan was at a complete loss as to what they were saying - all he could make out was the frequent occurrence of a word that sounded like "atrayoo", and the nods and smiles that went with every mention of this apparently right and pleasant concept.

It was a smaller but nevertheless elaborate tent-house that they stopped outside, the bustling throng of people receding like the ectoplasm of an amoeba, leaving Obi-Wan alone facing the door, or the wine-red ragged curtain that passed for a door in a house like this one. The young girl touched Obi-Wan's arm shyly and gestured for him to go inside, then followed one step behind him, into the calm darkness of the house.

Obi-Wan's eyes took a while to adjust to the warm red-tinted gloom inside, then focused on the centre of the young girl's attention. She was talking in her excited birdlike tones to a tall young man sitting cross-legged on a grass mat, engaged in mending arrows. He was easily a foot taller than the rest of his people, slim, almost thin, and elegant, with the same olive-green skin and blue-black hair. His was almost waist-long, held back by a plaited leather tie. In addition to the standard wine-red pants he wore soft leather moccasins of the same colour, and two proud white stripes painted along his collarbones as well as one along the bridge of his aristocratic nose. He smiled a careful smile that struck Obi-Wan as being almost diplomatic, and addressed him in Standard, a warm accent woven through like the wind through the grass.

"Who are you, stranger, who has sought out the houses of the Grass Sea people? Have you a story, so sit with me and tell it, please." The smile flickered up again, like embers on the dark brown lips, and Obi-Wan realised the man was probably no older than twenty at best. What had made him so respected and revered among his people, then? Well, for one thing he spoke his language. That was a bonus. He'd probably been around, travelled beyond the Grass Sea. So there was hope that he wouldn't run screaming at the sight of a battered spaceship parked outside the village.

"My name, revered master, is Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight at your service, and I am in deep distress indeed..." He broke off abruptly at the soft laughter bubbling up from the young man's throat. "Say again? Sorry, stranger... Obi-Wan Kenobi." He swallowed, then straightened his face with considerable effort and continued, "not meaning to be rude to you, or belittle your troubles... but no way is anyone at anyone's service here, right? We are a free people, and while you're here you might as well be too. Oh, and... I may not have as fancy a name as you, but I have one too. Atréyu, hunter." He touched one palm to Obi-Wan's chest in greeting, and the Jedi saw Atréyu's face darkening a shade at the galloping heartbeat he felt there. "Something wrong?"

Obi-Wan nodded gravely. "It's my apprentice... he came down with a raging fever just hours ago, and is on the verge of dying. We literally dropped down in the place nearest to where we were... is there anything like healers here, able and willing to assist...?"

Atréyu leapt to his feet with the easy grace of a gazelle, scattering broken and mended arrows around him, then nudged a stunned Obi-Wan out of the door. "Come, where is your companion? Let's get him into Alautun's hands as quickly as possible, then!" - "He's still in the ship," Obi-Wan panted as Atréyu had broken into a run across the braided pathways of the village, "over that way I think..." - "Ships," Atréyu exclaimed in what would have been an awed whisper if he hadn't been running at full speed, "it's been years since I last saw ships. Huge silvery houses swimming in the middle of the Murhu, the Lake of Tears. Beautiful things..." he stopped short as he set eyes on the meteorite-streaked battered transport that passed for Knight Kenobi's ship these days. Not even the golden glow of evening made it look any more appealing. "Not quite like this. How did you get this here anyway, with no water around?" Atréyu was already making his way inside with the fearless grace of the hunter, and Obi-Wan wondered just how aware the young man was of his Force-sensitivity, allowing him to clearly see where there was danger and where there was none. Obi-Wan decided to leave the question unanswered for the time being, unsure as to what sort of image of the rest of the universe young Atréyu had, and whether the concept of off-worlders would intimidate or infuriate him. Besides, they had reached Anakin's bunk already, and Obi-Wan watched in blunt astonishment as Atréyu picked Anakin up in his arms and effortlessly carried him out of the room, all the while staring mutely into the Padawan's face.

"He's losing the Thread," Atréyu hissed, as Obi-Wan silently offered to take the weight of his unconscious Padawan's legs, leaving the hunter to carry Anakin's shoulders. "He is unravelling inside, all the strands coming loose with the heat. He's warped. Has he been talking at all?" - "Just fantasising... incoherent stuff, but I did my best to keep him up. Wasn't enough I guess." Obi-Wan cleared his throat to dislodge the lump forming there, and was almost shocked when he heard Atréyu give a contented little laugh. "Just fantasising? Obi, that means he's still in there, and all may yet be well. Believe me, the worst illnesses are those that start with imagination dying. First you forget your name, then you forget why you are here, next thing you know you've got a hole in your belly from questioning your own existence, and then it eats away at you until you're no longer there. Mind you, most people never get to that stage - they jump off the edge of the world before that, or into the small grey pools of oblivion... we had a bad epidemic of that some years ago, we called it The Forgetting or The None. And if it had got as far as the Childlike Empress that would have been it - no more Grass Sea, no more Atréyu, no more Obi. No more...", he wordlessly gazed down on to Anakin's slack sweaty features, "what is his name anyway?"

"Anakin. Anakin Skywalker." Atréyu smiled. "None of you lot ever make do with just the one name, do you? Skywalker. I like that. Does he fly?" - "He is a brilliant pilot, if that's what you mean. Levitation isn't quite his thing. Gets distracted too easily..." Obi-Wan applied a touch of the Force to keep Anakin's legs up while he wiped his brow, hoping that Atréyu would either not notice or not mind. The young man just gave a subconscious wiggle at the manifest wave of Force and turned a bend in the road, homing in on a small low hut at the edge of the village, half-overgrown by the insistent grass.

"Alautun! Alautun!!" he shouted, all the while advancing towards the door, so that he nearly collided with the house's inhabitant when she finally deigned to scuttle out of her hovel. A small, withered and grey-eyed woman blinked up into the sunlight, her untidy shock of grey hair about level with Atréyu's chest. "Ah, young Atréyu. What have you brought me this time? Not another stray arrow, I hope?" She cackled unsettlingly, then busied herself removing Anakin's clothes even before they had fully settled him down on a mat under the eaves of the tiny hut, never even giving Obi-Wan a second glance. Still, the Jedi cleared his throat and spoke quietly, "He has come down with a fever, Healer Alautun, the origin of which is a mystery to me. It may not be of this world, but it has taken root inside him and is burning him up. He drinks abnormal quantities of water but nothing seems to cool him down..." - "Running heart, too," the little healer mused, checking for Anakin's pulse. "Has he been sleeping for long?" - "He is not sleeping, Alautun - " "Ach, I know that, stranger. I mean, how long has he been out?" - "Less than an hour. He must have passed out while I went in search of help... I had tried my best to keep him up before that. He was fantasising." Again, that relieved look, giving the old healer an almost angelic glow despite her shrivelled olive-brown skin. "Then there is hope. Leave him here for the night, I have water and time and a keen ear, and that is all he needs now. And you, pale stranger, look like you're in need of a good night's sleep."

"He is my guest, Alautun, don't worry," Atréyu said with a jovial little laugh, then made their excuses, took Obi-Wan by his arm and led him back to his own house.

"She speaks Standard too?" - "Oh, yes, Alautun has been around a bit. I'm told she was there when the Childlike Empress gathered all the healers and medicine beings of the entire empire together to seek a cure of The Forgetting. However, she can't have been listening too well, otherwise she would have heard when the famous Caíron spoke my name." He grinned. "I'll tell you the story later. Meanwhile, rest assured your companion is in good hands. Alautun may not be the most honest of souls, but she will try her best, and that is as good as it gets around here. Have you eaten yet, Obi?"

Obi-Wan stretched his aching bones, then curled up sideways on the hard grass mat, got to his knees and decided that the grey slivers weaving through the house's walls were daylight. He rubbed his eyes, sticky and dirty. Well at least I've caught some sleep, he thought morosely, who knows when I'll get the chance to do that again.

Atréyu was nowhere to be seen, so Obi-Wan borrowed some water from the kettle over the fireplace, washed his face and hands, dried them in his hair and rummaged around for his tunics. Ah yes. He had used them as a pillow at some point during the night. He sighed at the hopelessly crumpled state they were in, then put them on anyway, Anakin's black sash over the top, then went out in search of Atréyu and Anakin. And, should the opportunity arise, breakfast.

He didn't have to go far for the first of the three. Atréyu was sitting cross-legged under the eaves of the house, leaning his back against the wall, watching the rain and twining wet strands of grass into ropes. He looked up, face serene and bright, and Obi-Wan had to fight back the urge to just embrace and kiss the young man for all his friendliness and warmth and the sheer hope he exuded. And for his beauty.

Almost terrified of himself, Obi-Wan banished that last thought. "Atréyu," he said, letting the name resound in the small space sheltered from the warm rain, "have you heard anything of Anakin?" Atréyu got up and put his hand on Obi-Wan's shoulders, as if to keep him from bolting. They were unsettlingly warm and heavy, and good where they were. Part of Obi-Wan still wanted to bolt anyway. "Obi, he's still unconscious. Alautun says this fever is not like anything she has ever seen before, but she's confident that her medicines will help him. She's gone to gather sundry roots, I think..." - "Anakin's alone?" - "Don't worry, my Obi. Alautun's sister is looking in on him every half-hour or so. And I knew you would want to be with him as soon as you woke anyway," he added as Obi-Wan stalked out into the rain, one shoulder still under the comforting weight of Atréyu's hand.

It was as Atréyu had said. Anakin lay still on the mat outside the house, covered with a blanket of the coarse yet soft wine-red material everything here seemed to be made of. "Purple-buffalo hair," Atréyu said as if he'd read Obi-Wan's thoughts, "I don't know why we call them that when they're actually red, but they are magnificent beasts. And useful." He went inside to exchange a few strange-sounding words with Alautun's sister, then came back out with her and sent her on her way back to her own household. "I'll get you some breakfast while you watch over him, okay?" Obi-Wan nodded, helpless at the sight of his Padawan unconscious, the fluttering heartbeat still trembling at his neck. Helpless also at the easy warmth of his host. What did I do to deserve this, he thought as he held his sash out into the rain to be soaked, my Padawan winking out of my life just like that, and this stranger bringing more light into it than even a Jedi deserves?

Minutes later, Atréyu emerged from the house with a pair of bowls. "I'm afraid Alautun's larder is more attuned to the preparation of healing potions than actual food, but I managed to knock up a little something..." With this, and another open-hearted soft smile, he placed the bowls at Obi-Wan's knees, one containing an almost black liquid that smelled tangy and sour, and the other heaped with a steaming sweet-smelling mound of something white and sticky, with some sort of berries and tiny oval nuts sprinkled all over it. "Grunberry juice and seed-pudding. Extra hot and sweet for you, Obi." That impish grin again, and Obi-Wan nearly fell over backwards when Atréyu's dark lips brushed his nose, leaving the tiniest kiss there. "Th... thank you." Force, I'm blushing, and I should be used to this. Hah, stop kidding, Kenobi. It's been six years, and this one... this one can't know what he's doing, can he. Probably some kind of tribal courtesy. Like touching my chest with his palm for greeting. Yes, that'll be it. I still... like it though...

The pudding was sweet and nutritious, and Obi-Wan only noticed how hungry he must have been when the bowl was empty, and a warm glow was spreading in his belly. He sipped at the tart juice, found it to be surprisingly tasty, took a few deep draughts, then guiltily stopped, brought Anakin's head up and tried to dribble some of it past his Padawan's lips. No such luck - the dark fluid trickled from the corners of his mouth, leaving trails down his throat, pulsing with the fluttering heartbeat. "He won't even swallow... oh, Atréyu... when is Alautun coming back?"

He found himself wrapped in warm slender arms, Atréyu's hands soothingly stroking his tousled hair. "Sssssh, Obi. She is not far, I can sense her. And I can sense him too," he nodded in Anakin's direction, "he is not yet gone..." - "Not yet!" Obi-Wan cried, "but how much longer do you think he can hold out? I know his spirit is still in there, I can feel it all right, but how much longer will his body survive, Atréyu?! Look at him, he's not even drinking any more now, and just in case you wondered, no, this is not the colour his skin should be!" He had leapt up, roughly extricating himself from the younger man's embrace, and started pacing the narrow line between soaked grassland and the mat that Anakin lay on. "It's just... he may be just a boy to you, but to me he means something! He is my Padawan, and I dread losing him, right? And not being able to help him... just having him wrenched away from me like that - it's, it's... horrible!" Obi-Wan stood, burying his face in his hands, sobbing, and instinctively tensed up at Atréyu's warm arms gathering him up in a light embrace, standing behind him, wrapping both of them in his red cloak.

The soft voice by his ear soothed the Jedi more than any meditation had done in the past years. "Calm, Obi, calm... I can see you feel for him, it's written in every line on your face. And please don't believe, Obi, that I take this lightly just because he is your friend and not mine. I know the agony of having a friend torn away from you by death or disease or his own stupidity. I nearly lost Bastian that way, and it was by sheer luck that he stayed alive. Just refused to listen to me, all the way. He would very nearly have come out of it an empty shell, none of my friend left in that stupid heroic body, and he'd started out so full of himself it was unbelievable... still, he made it back to his home in the end, and it's all I can do to assume he's happy there. If I summed up all the times I've loved him and all the times I've hated him we'd probably come out neutral anyway..."

Obi-Wan wiped the tears off his cheeks and gave an uncertain smile. "Your Bastian is my Bant, I guess. Except she's still alive, and the last time I saw her she infuriated me totally by organising a naming-day party for me when I really didn't want to be reminded of how I was 30 now and a decrepit old Knight. And I've lost count of the number of times I had to hold her hand in the healers' ward because she had once again thrown caution to the wind and let herself dehydrate completely... she's a creature of the water, you see... but all in all, she was probably the best friend I had. I mean, the best friend I have."

Atréyu rested his head on Obi-Wan's hair, gently swaying while holding him tightly. A deep sigh clouded the air above the Jedi's forehead. "Yeah, the best friend I had... that must have been Fuchur... not so long ago...," he sighed deeply again, and Obi-Wan thought he felt the cool trickle of a tear falling into his hair. "He was always at my side, by my side, even on my side whenever his natural stubbornness allowed. Dragons," he snorted lightly, "hardly ever make friends with ones not of their kind. And I did sometimes find it hard to keep up with him, with the sheer depth of his thought and the unbearable lightness of his faith. He was like a child and an old man in the body of a warm, scaly white cloud-snake... he would curl around me when I fell asleep, cradling me in the warmth of his body... and a voice like a bronze bell..."

Obi-Wan realised his own tears had started flowing again at these words that seemed to describe nothing better than the lazy warmth of Qui-Gon's massive body curled around his, and the richness of his Master's tones, purring words of love or yelling in rapture. "What... what happened to him?" - "Oh, he died... just died. He must have been really old, and one day he didn't come to my house for breakfast any more, and I went out to find him in his nest out in the grassland, and his eyes were only half-open, and he said, in that slow singing voice, 'Atréyu, it is good of you to come, so I can take my leave of you.' I don't know how long I cried over his limp heavy form and the darkly closing eyes... but when I awoke the airy warm body had grown cold, and was sinking into the earth already, as if all the wind had gone out of him, and by dawn there was nothing left where my Fuchur had been, and the grass was growing again, forgetting him already. I never did..."

Overwhelmed, Obi-Wan turned around and gathered the younger man's head against his shoulder. Atréyu burrowed softly into the Jedi's tunics and exhaled a long, hot sigh, then wiped his tears away and hugged Obi-Wan tightly. "Thank you for feeling with me... it gets easier to remember every time I tell the story, and maybe in a few months' time I will be able to remember first the good times we had again, the glorious rides through the clouds... or when the silly cub decided he could face the Battle of the Four Winds with me on top and the Four Winds had other ideas..." he smiled tentatively. "See? You're healing me as we speak." He placed a grateful kiss on Obi-Wan's bearded cheek. "Tell me your story, please, Obi. I feel it weighing you down, and you so deserve to be standing up straight, my Obi... you lost a friend also?"

"A friend, and more.... so much more. At first he was just... my Master, someone to look up to and respect and run to when you're in trouble... you know what it's like when you're thirteen. He was my father first, then my Master, then my friend, and then... my lover." A choking sob fought its way out of Obi-Wan's throat, and Atréyu nodded and petted the smaller man's head. "Gods, Obi, I hope you had the longest and best time together before he... died?" - "He was killed in battle, and I was standing behind this transparent wall watching as this abominable creature struck him down, a minute breach in his defence, and the thing stuck his lightsabre right through him, and nothing I could do about it. I was screaming my lungs out as he fell... he is still falling, to me he is still falling, Atréyu... every night... and I cannot move and cannot... run..." - "Oh Obi... so you had him torn from you without even a word of farewell...?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "No... I... I ran in there as soon as the door opened, and cut that... thing in half. I had never felt so... so enraged. It had been wrong to be enraged until that moment, and then it was so utterly right. The creature fell, long and hard, and died. And nothing could bring my Qui-Gon back... and the last thing he said... was... was...," Obi-Wan buried his head in Atréyu's long hair, holding on for dear life as he had done at that turning point, hands cramped in Qui-Gon's hair, "promise me you'll train the boy... he didn't even have the strength in him to kiss me goodbye... just sent a wave of love that ebbed away with his life... and left me... alone."

"Alone with a child?" Atréyu's face was a mixture of incredulity and relief, "did he have a son?" - "No, Atréyu. The child in question is lying right here... Anakin. It was Qui-Gon's conviction that the boy was special and needed teaching in the Jedi ways... I didn't want to do it at first, going against everyone else in the Temple, but... but it had been my Master's dying wish... maybe even more important to him than I ever was... and now I'm stranded here and... losing him as well... Qui-Gon's last hope... and mine..." He howled his despair into Atréyu's smooth warm hair, and let the rain wash over the two of them as they stood, now silently, three steps from Anakin's sickbed and yet a world away.

The rain felt good, soaking his scruffy tunics, spreading its cool smoothness over Obi-Wan's skin, washing away the tears, seeping from his face into Atréyu's cloak and from Atréyu's hair onto his hands where he held the younger man tightly, grateful for his existence.

They sat quietly for a long time, listening to the rain and to Anakin's shallow breathing, filling in the blanks in their life stories, feeding off each other's lives and the similarity between them, admiration growing between them, caressing old scars and soothing new wounds. When Alautun arrived, rain-soaked and swearing under her breath, the two young men almost looked like they had never been crying at all, and the old healer shooed them away of the house, claiming she needed peace and quiet for the preparation of Anakin's medicine. As they retreated, still with their arms slung around each other's shoulders, she shouted after them, "Don't worry, the boy will be all right. I've sent for Caíron as well. Never wrong to have a second opinion!" At the mention of the name, Atréyu's face darkened for a split second, then opened up into the most perfect expression of relieved happiness Obi-Wan had ever seen. This man was like balm to his soul, his stirring animal soul. Maybe the lair had not been empty after all. Maybe the beast had been in hibernation...?

They took a long walk in the rain, wandering along each soggy plaited path in the area, arms slung around each other, talking, sharing, until the sky grew another shade darker with evening and Atréyu ran a hand through Obi-Wan's dripping hair, dishevelled and dark reddish brown with the rain. "How about a good old warm wash and rubdown, my Obi?" The answer came in the shape of Obi-Wan's hands, playfully rubbing his new friend's sides through his soaked cloak, eliciting a tiny laugh from Atréyu before they raced each other to Atréyu's house.

Panting and smiling with genuine happiness for the first time in what seemed like ages, Obi-Wan stood in the middle of the small dark house and tore off his belt and sash, getting rid of his soaked clothes as quickly as possible when he felt the insistent warm grip of Atréyu's slim brown hands on his. "Not in here, Obi. After all...," a playful nip at his shoulder, and a grin that communicated directly to Obi-Wan's sensitised skin, "I want to see you in all your glory!" Obi-Wan shook his head and could not contain an altogether inappropriate laugh. What had he done to deserve this sprite of a man? Reluctantly, he padded towards the front door again, and was just lifting the curtain when Atréyu's amused voice came from the vicinity of the hearth. "Not that way, silly. The back door. There's a nice little yard so you won't scare the little girls!"

Obediently, Obi-Wan ducked through the low back door and emerged into a small but neat yard, a sun-wheel of braided grass on the ground, and thin six-foot-high grass walls around it. Probably the nicest place to be in summer, Obi-Wan mused, when it's sunny... now, the rain beat down on the grassy ground, seeping through the plaited floor leaving it shining with grey-green cleanliness. Satisfied, Obi-Wan got rid of his soaked tunics, kicked his squelchy boots away towards the house and was just pulling his pants down when he realised Atréyu had been watching. All along. Leaning against the rear wall of his house like an obscenely beautiful sculpture in just his soaked pants, the thin fabric clinging to his long muscular thighs, dark skin glistening with rain, hair straggly and shining, a delicious smile on his face.

"Are you going to stand there watching all day, or are you joining me?" Obi-Wan teased, feeling a little uncomfortable naked in the rain with those unreadable dark eyes on him. "So impatient, my Obi? I'm just waiting for the sai to boil up, then I'll be with you immediately!" With that, he disappeared into the hut, and came back a minute later carrying a small cauldron. "Might as well do it properly, eh, Obi?"

Before he had the time to respond, a warm wetness slapped on his back, instantly soothing the irritated skin where it had been chafed by the layers of wet fabric. In soft small circles, the warm sponge rubbed its way across his back, easing tense muscles, tickling the nerve endings to life. Obi-Wan groaned in protest as the contact broke, and it was only the splashing sound of more hot water being soaked into the sponge that kept him from turning around.

And when the warm sponge returned to trace beautiful warm circles all along his chest, Obi-Wan couldn't care less. The gently rubbing warmth and the smooth light green lather were nothing compared to the feeling of Atréyu's body pressed against his back, now unmistakably naked and covering every square inch of the recently-cleaned skin with sheer sensation. When the younger man leaned over Obi-Wan's shoulder to scrub at a nipple, Obi-Wan writhed against the lithe warm skin and quite clearly felt the delicious warm hardness of Atréyu's erection pressing into the small of his back. He pushed back, and a surprised moan escaped the younger man's mouth, a sound so sweet and aching with pleasure that it broke down Obi-Wan's hardened shields in an instant, and he spun around and captured the beautiful boy's face in his hands and drank a deep and needy kiss from his soft dark lips. Oh, he tasted so good, so warm and clean and sweet and sincere as if none of the past six years had ever happened, as if Obi-Wan had never forgotten how to make love, and how good it felt to do just that.

Atréyu laughed into Obi-Wan's devouring mouth, and busied his hands in the Jedi's hair, soaping and untangling it while feeding him sheer heaven with his tender lips and that flickering long tongue, teasing Obi-Wan's own awake and luring it into the willing warmth of Atréyu's mouth. When Obi-Wan's own hardness began to leak all over his stomach, Atréyu extricated himself from the Jedi's tight embrace, grinned and tucked the swollen organ between his own olive-green thighs, squeezing it tightly while soaping Obi-Wan's pubes, hips, and ass. Oh my, what a fine ass, Atréyu thought dimly. Pale, the colour of buffalo bones and just as firm but soooo smooth and silky... soaping done, he dropped the sponge and let his hands roam over the firm cheeks, holding on tightly as Obi-Wan's hips began to thrust helplessly between his thighs, tip urgently rubbing against sensitive skin, mouth seeking mouth and locking in a bruising kiss.

Atréyu savoured the hot slick heat of Obi-Wan's cock burrowing between his thighs, and growled at the increasingly frantic thrusts, Obi-Wan's taut stomach squashing his own erection between them ever harder. He trailed one finger down the tight crack of Obi-Wan's ass and stroked the tender ring of muscle, making him moan and thrust harder. Picking up some foam that the rain had not yet washed off Obi-Wan's back, Atréyu carefully pushed one finger past the tight opening... Obi-Wan squirmed, torn between thrusting forward into the delicious vice grip of those strong thighs and pushing himself backwards onto that probing finger. The dilemma resolved itself with a scream when Atréyu found Obi-Wan's hot spot and rubbed it relentlessly until the Jedi writhed in his arms, incoherent with need and pleasure, moaning and screaming out the sheer force of his orgasm.

Atréyu held him for a long time until the tremors had died down and the rain had washed all the soap and sperm from their bodies. With a long gentle kiss, Atréyu gathered Obi-Wan in his arms and led him inside the house again, rubbed him and himself dry, then lovingly stretched him out on his bed, covered with extra rugs for warmth and comfort, spooned up against him and pulled the covers over them with one hand, mouth once again locked on to Obi-Wan's in a deep kiss. When he let him up for air, Obi-Wan smiled into the younger man's mouth and casually rocked his hips against Atréyu's still hard cock, eating the answering chuckle straight off those delicious lips. Atréyu stretched, then rolled on top of Obi-Wan, covering him with his easy dark grace, skin to skin. His long black hair streamed down his shoulders and pooled on Obi-Wan's chest, tickling his nipples to hardness. Force, Obi-Wan thought. What have I done to deserve this... this wonderfully loose creature, this walking, talking manifestation of the Living Force, wrapped around me like a blanket, comforting and gorgeous, an animal waking mine, this beautiful beautiful man... wanting me... showing me what it's like to be... loved... unconditionally...

The silken touch of the other man's hair on his chest, along with the warm strong hands burrowing in his own, and the kiss, oh the maddening hot greedy kiss nearly pulled Obi-Wan under. He saw little grey stars dancing in front of his eyes when Atréyu let him up for air, and heard that sweet dark mouth whispering, in a voice tinged with lust and laughter...

"Would you like me to show you how I used to ride my dragon...?"

The mat felt softer when Obi-Wan awoke, and... larger than the morning before. Where was he? Why... oh. Where was he, where was Atréyu? Out of bed already, leaving him alone to sleep into the meaningless cloud-hung morning? To be perfectly honest, Obi-Wan thought, I would have needed the sleep after last night's activities anyway... but his mouth felt awkward, a stale taste had settled in it that spoke of familiar feelings. Atréyu had left, effectively taken his own light with him, leaving the reluctant dawn to cast some sort of light on the scene.

So it was courtesy after all, or more likely lust. I guess I should be proud I can still inspire lust in someone as beautiful as him. Beautiful. Beautiful lusty mindless animal, that's what Atréyu had been, and that's what Obi-Wan had been, giving in to the undertow, rutting and screaming in the warm haze of sex. It had felt good to be an animal. Now it felt terrible to be able to remember it. As a human. Worse still, as a Jedi.

Here I am, he thought, my own Padawan on the verge of dying just a few houses away, and I'm shagging beautiful strangers as if I had never known the difference between lust and love, and valued the latter above the former. Qui-Gon should have taught me better than that. But Qui-Gon wasn't here, and it had... had it felt like love? He was too unfamiliar with the feeling, after six years, to be certain. He felt out of place, like an animal expected to behave in a human society. Last night had been the animal's turn. Now it was the man's.

With a sigh, Obi-Wan scrambled out of bed and got dressed. Peeking round the back door into the little yard, he saw Atréyu, with his back turned towards him, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the plaited sun-wheel of grass. He had his head bowed and seemed very intently concentrating on something. Meditating even. Exorcising last night's demons, Obi-Wan wondered dimly, asking his gods for forgiveness, or, even worse, asking his hunter deities for acceptance of the beast he'd conquered? Prey. Obi-Wan felt like prey. And it wasn't even Atréyu's fault.

Slowly and without a sound, he advanced along the perimeter of the yard until he could catch a glimpse of Atréyu's face. Surprisingly, the younger man was not in meditation at all, and the calm serenity he exuded came from the delight he took in reapplying the white paint marks to his shoulders and nose, peering into a mirror shard while painting a thin white line on the olive-green skin. Obi-Wan could have watched him forever, stretching this moment as long as possible, the moment of innocence before the confession of guilt...

"Sleep well, Obi?" The face flashed pure open friendliness and curiosity, and Obi-Wan winced inwardly at how he would have to disappoint this beautiful animal, this unintentional predator... "Don't remember actually... I must have been really tired. " A chuckle from Atréyu, then the young man got up from his seated position, stretched himself languidly and walked over to Obi-Wan, who unwittingly backed into the wall.

"Listen, Atréyu," the words were enough to stop the hunter in his tracks and make him prick up his ears, all the while smiling at Obi-Wan, radiant and purely good... "about last night... I'm sorry, I'm really sorry for letting myself go like that. I shouldn't have... I shouldn't have done this. I mean, it's not like I didn't enjoy it, but it was... I don't see a future here, right? I don't think I can give you what you think you'll get from me, and what I think you deserve too. It was.... animal. I shouldn't be doing this, Atréyu...", a hand on his throat stopped him short, not by gripping hard or cutting his voice off, no, just by lying there, warm and insistent, mirroring Obi-Wan's own racing pulse back to his attention. Then, Atréyu spoke, and there was nothing but that voice in all of the universe.

"Obi. My Obi. I was hoping to give you the same joy and love I felt for you last night. I must have failed... is it that other love you still carry? Obi, you need not be sorry for having loved, and having loved someone so worthy. I am not trying to replace him, or erase the memory of him from your mind... I know I would never be able to match the love you felt for him anyway, and I'm not even trying, Obi. And I'm not expecting undying love from you... but do you know at all how beautiful you are when you abandon yourself to the moment? Do you know how much life is in there, crouching inside you, waiting to pounce? You are overwhelming, Obi, and it hurts me to see you deny it for the memory of something that was great and that will be great forever. He will never cease to be the wonder he was. I am just trying to give you some of your own radiance back... it was not I alone that cried out and laughed in pleasure last night, Obi. It was you too, and I adored that, to see the animal let loose, to see the life pulsing through you again... Obi. The past is great. The moment is greater, if only for the moment. And you are still here. And believe it or not, you are loveable. And you will be gone again some time soon, I know that, I'm not a stupid teenage girl. But for the time being, I feed off your glorious aura, and it's all I can offer to let you feed off mine. That's all I can say really..." he looked up into a quiet contorted face, Obi-Wan trying to hold his tears back, looking twenty years younger all of a sudden, and just as incapable of not crying as a ten-year-old boy would be.

Sobbing, he fell slack against Atréyu. "There, there, Obi. Your life is harder than mine, I know, but your strength is more than mine too. Your animal showed mine last night." Obi-Wan looked up with a start. Could he read his mind too? And did he really not want him to do that? Obi-Wan felt... odd. Numb, as if the old scars had momentarily dropped out of sensation, leaving emptiness in their place. And a shoulder that offered support. A beautiful shoulder, with a white stripe smudged already with Obi-Wan's tears. Absent-mindedly, he trailed his fingers along the collarbone, trying to straighten out the chalk-mark. "Atréyu... thank you. Thank you for being. You... what you say is so true that it takes someone else to tell me sometimes because I refuse to take it from my own voice. Qui-Gon used to say that an awful lot - 'live in the moment', and you can tell how little I listened to him over the years. If I lived in the moment I wouldn't be standing here smudging your body-paint..."

Atréyu's amused snort cut him off. "No, if you lived in the moment you would be lying here smudging my body-paint... of all people you should know what an animal you can be, Obi! By the way, Alautun has sent word that Anakin is still stable, but Caíron is reported to be about half an hour away from the village. One of Regha's brothers saw him from the mountain ridge..."

"Caíron? I... I mean, you mentioned him before, but what exactly is he? I mean, is he some sort of wizard to you, or what is he... you knew him, didn't you?" Obi-Wan's voice trailed off helplessly, fully aware that once again he probably hadn't been listening to Atréyu's stories.

"I knew Caíron, though I cannot say whether I will still know Caíron when I see him today. I knew the Caíron that sat by the Childlike Empress' sickbed and declared that a hunter of our tribe should go out on the Great Quest, and that his name was Atréyu. Annoyed me no end when he came along to tell me that - he'd literally stopped me in the middle of my Hunt... it was Caíron's bad timing that made me stay a child for another year. Technically speaking anyway. Not that I got round to doing much childlike stuff in the course of that year... anyway, Caíron was very old then, and getting weaker, so I don't know if he'll still be the same one I met then."

"You mean, Caíron is some sort of... title? Some sort of name adopted by a succession of individuals fulfilling the role of the imperial shaman or whatever it is he does...?" - "He is a healer, and the best in this world, Obi. And he is the same Caíron in all of his lives. The Caíron that Alautun met on her travels when she was young is the same Caíron who summoned me decades later, and he'll be the same Caíron who's just now on his way to the village. He won't look quite the same, and he won't have quite the same mind, but he'll be Caíron in his soul, and will be that forever."

"You mean he's considered some kind of immortal passing through a succession of individuals?" Obi-Wan struggled hard to get his head around so much magical thinking.

"No, Obi. He is the sum of these individuals, and more. Every time Caíron's body reaches the end of its life span he retreats to his lair and undoes himself. I don't know how he does it, but the body just... disintegrates, I guess, and the next morning he awakes in a new one of his own making. And his minds leave him and join the Lifecloud, and when he wakes he's got some new ones to make up the new Caíron. He has no parents, and no brothers, he is one of a kind, Obi. And the elders say that he takes the minds of those dead ones with unfinished business, good business, and moulds them into his own and lets them do what they need to do through him. I don't know... I've never recognised anyone in him yet, but then I don't know an awful lot of people, and Caíron's travelled the length and breadth of the world, and possibly more than that. And he's never just one mind at a time, they say. He should be plural really... plural in one body. Shall we see if Caíron have arrived yet, then, Obi?"

With a weak smile, Obi-Wan acquiesced. Much though he wished he could believe in this hazy magical being, he was still worried for the health of his Padawan, and hoped that whoever (and however many) Caíron might turn out to be, he had better be one damn good healer.

Coming closer to Alautun's house, Obi-Wan could not help being shocked at what he seemed to make out through the hazy grey mist that was rising from last night's rain. Not only was Anakin no longer lying down - he was propped against the wall for what he could see, half-obscured by Alautun herself looking very busy and agitated. Was he awake? Had he finally lost the Thread and died? And why had someone insisted on bringing their horse? Sith damn it, he couldn't see his Padawan because the mighty hindquarters of a horse were obscuring his view. Savages, he thought. I would never let a horse near someone about to die of an unidentified infection...

...and then, time stopped.

Obi-Wan advanced all the way to house in the space of a heartbeat, running, jumping, incredulous at the sight, wanting to put it out of existence, or hold it firmly in the reality of this moment.

The horse was - well, not a horse. It was a centaur. A centaur with a mildly annoyed look on his face that bloomed into an incredulous smile and then a full-on beam within the same split second it took Obi-Wan to take in the sight. Caíron? This was Caíron? A huge sturdy pale brown horse's body with a slim black line snaking along its back, and another one just where the horse stopped being a horse and the fur trailed off to reveal the hips of a man... an uneven line of black hairs encircling the slender hips in an untimely echo of... Obi-Wan banished the thought, and tried to catch up with his eyes. The centaur was - old. His hair was grey, streaming down his shoulders almost to his nipples. Brown, even nipples. A beautiful neck. Dark skin, almost the colour of the horse part... and brown eyes, brown but ringed with the myriads of crow's feet he had come to know like a map of his homeland, speaking of laughter and love. The eyebrows were bushier, the skin darker, and the beard was almost white, but he was... he was... Obi-Wan struggled to stick to the name the being had, and not the one he desperately wanted to give it... "Caíron?"

"Obi-Wan." The voice. An unfamiliar accent, but oh, the voice, rich with memories of the years that seemed like a lifetime ago now, and yet were somehow here now, all of them jostling into the tiny unbearably bright pinprick of the moment. And he remembered his name. Unable to form any more words, Obi-Wan broke down, clinging to the centaur's waist like a drowning man, burying his face against the soft old skin, breathing in a scent that was familiar enough to be good, and here, and soothing... unconsciously, his hands had begun stroking the line of black hairs around Caíron's waist as his tears dried, slowly, shimmering on the centaur's skin.

"Obi-Wan, all is well. Your Padawan will be back to his usual cheeky self within days, believe me. Alautun's been a great help," he nodded sagely to the shrivelled healer, who visibly basked in the presence of the great Caíron, "and she'll take care that the medicine I brought will be administered regularly. And yes, you were right, Obi, he caught that disease on Degujapa... off the birds, in fact. That had me puzzled for a while too... these things shouldn't normally be communicable, you see? Maybe it was the circumstances, or a new strain of virus..." - "No," Obi-Wan said with a relieved sigh, delighting in the sight of his Padawan drinking greedily, "it's simpler than that, Mas... Caíron. Anakin is a bird. Just like Atréyu is some sort of predatory cat, and... I am not sure what I am. Confused, to be honest."

A soft chuckle warmed Obi-Wan's innards, then that voice whispered, half in his ear, half in his mind. "Would you like a wider view, my Obi-Wan? I think I am entitled to give you one, and you look in need of one to me... hop up!" With that, the mighty revered centaur healer Caíron got down upon his front knees, and the mighty confused Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi scrambled up in no time at all.

High. He felt high. Above the tips of the Grass Sea, soaring, a tiny pinpoint of heat and light above the rustle of days like blades of grass. Here was now, racing along on the back of an ancient centaur, at an improbable speed given the creature's apparent age... and so full of life. Obi-Wan was lost in the beautiful pounding of the strong sleek body beneath his, and in the blanket of pure mental clarity that Caíron's mind threw over him. And the scent of that hair as he buried his hands in Caíron's mane and let it whip his face with the wind, so hot, so alive, so here, so now, such beautiful memories all brought forward to collide in the Moment, a supernova of joy and pleasure and remembered love becoming felt love and Obi-Wan was taken completely by surprise by the feral roar tearing itself from his own mouth as his body spasmed in fulfilment and the animal leapt off Caíron's back, only to gracefully land inside the lair of Obi-Wan's soul. He was totally dumbfounded.

It had to take me six years, he thought, utterly incredulous. Six years and an emergency landing and a young sprite of a hunter and a bloody centaur to feel like this again? He had no idea why, but he felt completed, as if the empty place in him had been filled with something that had been there all along, just misplaced. A jigsaw piece held up to the light the wrong way. He felt complete, and he had no idea why, and he was happy with that, and it felt extremely odd to be so unquestioning when there were so many questions to be asked. Like... how on earth did... Qui-Gon...

The centaur laughed, a warm low neigh, and slowed to a walk. "Obi-Wan... I am Caíron, not Qui-Gon. I am more than just the one person that means all the world to you... and yet I am not all of him. Not all of him was available at the time of my Remaking, young man, and he told me why. Obi-Wan," he said, turning around to face him, so close that their noses almost touched, "not all of Qui-Gon Jinn is in me. Some of him is in you."

Epilogue

The ship's hatchway, slowly and creakingly retracting into the hull, formed a perfect dividing line. It could have been a mirror really. On the one side, waving gratefully, still a little pale but determined to be a good Jedi Padawan and not let on, young Anakin Skywalker, still wearing his master's sash. On the other side, manfully trying not to show his regret at seeing the unexpected visitors leaving so soon, young Atréyu the hunter, with a matching line of white around his waist in honour of his friends' garb.

On the one side, Caíron the centaur radiating serenity and relief from every feature, in the knowledge of a delicate operation turned out well, of a timid animal set free, an animal that didn't even know of its own existence any more. The bit of Qui-Gon inside Caíron beamed with pride and swam with tears at the sight of what was on the other side.

On the other side, Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, and all that was inside him, smiled genuinely for the first time in ages.