Archive: Master_apprentice. If anybody wants it, just give me a
hoot. =-)
Category: Drama, Angst
Rating: R
Warnings: Not much sex here, folks, just some provocative
stuff. Obi-Wan will start appearing soon, but not in this
"chapter."
Spoilers: JA #2
Summary: Qui-Gon is having disturbing dreams, and can't
decipher their meaning.
Feedback: As much as you can spare! Constructive or just
praise, or flames if you've gotta send them. I'll take
anything. =-)
Dream is not a revelation. If a dream affords the dreamer some
light on himself, it is not the person with closed eyes who
makes the discovery but the person with open eyes lucid enough
to fit thoughts together. Dream? a scintillating mirage
surrounded by shadows? is essentially poetry.
Michel Leiris
The dream was clear, and not so clear:
Xanatos lay sprawled out upon his back, arms stretched out wide
and knees bent slightly, and a satisfied half-smile playing at
the corners of his mouth. His eyes- oh, how the Dreamer knew
those icy, alluring eyes- were not quite open, and the angles
of his immaculate face were softened in heated bliss. A slow
breath was taken in, and let out with a whispered, sensual
groan so soft it might not have sounded at all? but that it was
caught in the Dreamer's very blood, it seemed, which might have
burned the observer's body to ash with its searing influence.
Dark hair was spilt about like black, black poison, but for one
strand caught upon moist lips, and one long and half-undone
braid tucked behind an exquisite ear. Xanatos stretched
luxuriously, enjoying the feel of his own body, and perhaps
enjoying even more the transfixed eyes upon his taught muscles
and perfect form; the stretch became a lingering thrust of hip,
followed by another, and then another with increasing force,
until the lissome body had caught itself up in a writhing,
gasping fantasy, lost to some sweet lover of the mind's eye.
Both dreamer and dreamed of were enthralled, captured,
enraptured, impassioned. Burning? but Xanatos burned quite
literally.
The young man lay upon a great stone pyre, caressed and licked
by the flames which capered around him, but never quite seemed
to scorch his pale skin. As his passion mounted, so did the
blaze grow higher and lighter, its roar mimicking the ecstatic
cries which grew louder and louder as the dream progressed.
And the Dreamer wished with all his soul that it would end.
Strange feelings of broken faith and broken bonds were invading
now, even as the tempter turned to him, rolling on to his
stomach and resting his chin on one arm as the other reached
for the Dreamer, as the eyes beckoned him to come and take.
But the Dreamer would not take. Instead, he woke.
"Repression, probably," Mace Windu advised over hot Dusarian
tea the next morning. "Maybe it was caused by pent up feelings
you haven't let go to the Force. Or maybe you're just going
crazy."
"Very likely." Qui-Gon watched the ripples in his drink as he
tipped the cup back and forth idly. "I've never had a dream
like this before. And I've certainly never..."
"Thought of your apprentice like that?" his friend finished
when Jinn trailed off.
"I am very fond of Xanatos..."
Brown eyes rolled. "As everyone well knows."
"... but my affections have never turned to lust. But why in
ten Sith hells was he burning? Why the feeling of separation
between us?" Qui-Gon finished his tea off with a long gulp and
shoved the cup aside irritably.
Mace shrugged. "It's probably just your response to your
emotions. You're burning your desire, destroying it. Or maybe
he's burning with desire, and on some subconscious level you
know it. The master-padawan bond's true depth is not one we've
ever discovered."
"You think... you really think..."
Another shrug. "I'm just making suggestions. If you really want
to figure this dream out, go talk to a Master who has that
talent. Or better yet, meditate on it and make sense of it on
your own."
There was a moment of silence.
"You honestly think Xanatos could..."
Windu sighed. "I'm just giving you some ideas. I don't know.
I've been off Coruscant too long to be around your apprentice
much. Though I have heard rumors about him and another student,
if that puts your mind at any ease."
Qui-Gon nodded. That was true, at least. His padawan had been
spending an unusual amount of time with a pretty girl his age
of late, and she seemed quite enamoured of him. Xanatos, when
he decided he'd allow the world to see his emotions rather than
hiding it behind his usual stoic, knightly mask, seemed just as
interested in her. But Jinn had never asked about the
relationship, and now he was almost afraid to.
"Thank you, my friend," he said. "You know I've never been good
at this sort of thing."
"What, feeling?" Mace grinned and punched his companion lightly
in the arm. Then he became serious again. "Don't make any sort
of rash judgements about any of this, Qui-Gon."
"Of course not." Jinn stood and wrapped his cloak around
himself. "I don't even need to see Xanatos for the day. He's
off with Yoda until late evening."
He withdrew from the dinning hall and spent his day in
fruitless meditation, in which he did battle with a great many
thoughts and feelings, but ended up concentrating on the Light
and Purity of the Force to find peace from all of it. Some was
found, enough for him to doze off when the time came that night
to sleep.
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