Master Apprentice 
Archive
Mist
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Author's web page: http://www.ravenswing.com/ravendreams/
Category: Vignette
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Spoilers: none
Summary: In response to the Emu's dialogue challenge. A small tale of mist and mystery.
Notes: Have I mentioned how fabulous and dedicated and patient a beta reader Mystique is? No? I should have, 'cause she is. Many thanks. All mistakes are mine.
Feedback: Waited for with bated breath.
Disclaimers: I don't have enough to pay attention. Lucas owns everything.
"Don't let them see me like this."
The muted plea hung there, caught within the moss and tattered insect webs, weighed down by a chill dampness. Obi-Wan could see the vague shadows of sorrow and panic and death her words had left swirling within the mist.
The water dripped down onto his cloak -- he assumed the heavy drops were rain, were something as innocent and life affirming as rain. This place existed without a sky, without hint of sun or cloud or anything save the grey trees making a home for lichen and the mist and beetles and snakes and two tribal peoples who were at war.
He needed the light, just for an hour, just for a day. Obi-Wan felt the mist, filling his lungs, coating his palette like rancid oil. The mist, thick enough to be a "thing" now, not just a curious weather pattern.
Her eyes had been brown, soft, and they had disappeared behind the trees.
Obi-Wan moved forward, stepping carefully over the ground, leaving little hint of his passage. His master was near, waiting for his errant padawan, his exhausted padawan, his lost padawan, his padawan who had been seduced by the mists.
The mist was not a gentle lover.
The encampment hid within its shell -- no smoke, no hint of fire or light. One grey lump was situated haphazardly amongst other lumps underneath an unending blanket of mist.
He might have missed it -- Jedi training or no -- if he had not felt the whisper of welcome, of concern, of home. Obi-Wan shook his head, someone was waiting for him, wanting him. Weren't they? The mist hid his feet and he stumbled over something long and thin and hard. For a moment he wasn't sure where he was, which way was up.
The pulse of his master's mind swept towards him, driving back the pull of the mist, beckoning.
The mist had seemed somehow thicker around her, clinging to the raised scabs along her face, to the odd shapes that had once been a woman's body. Her voice was vibrant, rich and heavy within his ears.
"I just wanted to know -- to know my sons live and grow. I needed..." Her voice faded, losing its shattered life. The mist made abstract patterns when parted by hands with missing fingers.
Obi-Wan entered the compound, nodding to the guards who stood, fierce and chiseled. The streets -- or at least the paths the domed structures left behind -- ached with silence.
He turned to look and was not surprised to find that the mist had followed him in.
A right turn, a step around a discarded toy molding on the ground, left around a building with the sigil for death scrawled upon it and finally a door, and light waiting behind it.
He peered through the ash-covered window. On the sill he could see signs of her passing: three fingerprints, a streak of blood and then nothing. The pale wood was damp and he dragged his fingers in the crevasses, bringing the fingers to his lips and tasting.
Salt.
Her eyes were dry, red and raw, but dry as she whispered her shame. "I cannot go back, Jedi. I am not who I was. I was a warrior, a mother, a wife, a daughter of a chieftain. Now, I am a ghost, a murmured story to frighten babies, a hag. I belong to the mist."
Looking down, Obi-Wan stood within and around and over her footprints, burying them beneath his feet, stamping down hard and erasing her. He stamped down harder, splashing fetid mud, burying her.
"Obi-Wan? Padawan? Come in from the dark." His master's voice was warmth and home and he wanted to breathe it in, suckle the serenity and peace. He wanted to bury himself within the truth that was Qui-Gon Jinn. The possibility seemed very distant, passion chilled by the night air and Qui-Gon's voice faded into a soft murmur.
"Yes, Master." He turned to the door, oily handprints smudging the sharper edges and entered.
The chieftain looked up from his bulky chair, startlingly silver hair protecting his exhausted eyes, the nose gone forever rosy from too much ale and too many tears. The room was dim, smoky and thick and the fire in the middle of the room cast a harsh light that hid more than it illuminated.
"Chieftain." Obi-Wan bowed slightly, relishing the heat of the flames as his face moved closer to the fire, burning away the kiss of mist. He stored away the flash of brightness in his deepest memory.
"Jedi." Sorrow was in his voice, trapped beneath exhaustion. "Is there any news from the front?"
Obi-Wan trembled, firmed his chin and hands. He could smell the mud on his boots. "Yes, Chieftain." He reached inside his cloak and drew out a long hank of brassy hair, ragged and bloodied. "A... a warrior brought this to me and bade me tell you that your daughter died a glorious death in battle, defending your name and the honor of her sons."
The father stood, reaching for the hair and Obi-Wan handed it over as if it were spun glass. Hilarity bubbled within him, sickening and sweet. Spun glass.
Shards of glass.
Shards like the broken knife that she had hacked at her long hair with, the single spot of brightness within the mist.
She had handed it to him and she had lost her light. Even her blood had become viscous and black. Obi-Wan couldn't remember agreeing, couldn't remember her whispering to him the right things to say to bring her father peace, to ensure her children's rank.
Then she had simply disappeared into the mist, dissolving.
Dissolving, just like he was.
A steady pulling and he was walking back into the night, into the mist and maybe this time the mist would take him and maybe he could allow that and never come back, never see the sun, never breathe...
"No, Obi-Wan. Open your eyes, Padawan. Open your eyes for me. You have a fever, simply a fever."
There was that voice, the tone of home, of light and home and warmth. Suddenly he was wet and warm and the bright flicker of flame danced behind his eyelids. "Open your eyes, Obi-Wan."
"The mist."
"The mist does not belong right here and now. Open your eyes."
The room was alight, illuminated with dozens of candles and the bath water was hot and Qui-Gon was washing him gently. "What happened?"
"I could ask that of you, Padawan. You have been drifting away for hours -- off-balance, lost. I...I will not lose you to mere whispers, Obi-Wan. You must focus, stay with me."
"The mist... it wants me."
"No, Padawan. You are ill, tired, frightened. You have exhausted yourself with work and worry."
Obi-Wan turned, looked into sad eyes marked with fear. "No, it wants me. I talked with its ghosts."
Qui-Gon lifted him up, buoyed him with the Force and wrapped a sheet tight around him until he was dry.
"It wants me."
He was placed carefully into a bed. The whisper floated toward him, rough and raw. "It cannot have you."
Obi-Wan watched as his master undressed, the light playing across his body. Qui-Gon slid in beside him, sharing his body heat, his Light.
"I heard them, the mist..." Exhaustion, pouring through him, biting down on his consciousness with blurred teeth.
"Hush, Obi-Wan." A kiss, soft and warm and that voice of love and he was sinking. The world fell away and there was only heat and blinding dual suns and acre upon acre of white sand and no mist.
He heard her voice, borne upon a vicious wind that made his joints ache and his skin tighten. "One day, Jedi, you will be shorn and watching your beloved children from afar and you will be cracked as I am and you will understand. We are doomed warriors -- ghosts, phantoms. One day, Jedi, you will understand and you will hide too."
His eyes were too dry to spare tears.
Qui-Gon looked down, brushed the long braid away from the dry, fevered cheek as Obi-Wan thrashed within his fever-dream. "Shh, Padawan, my Obi-Wan. Sleep. Don't dream. Sleep."
Obi-Wan's body settled and Qui-Gon heard the soft whisper, an odd plea from the man cradled within his arms.
"Force, don't let them see me..."
The End