Master
Apprentice  Archive
Opposite Truths #3: Knight's Vigil
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Series: Third story in "Opposite Truths" which includes
Archive: M_A. Anyone else, just ask
Category: POV, Angst
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Yes, sort of for TPM.
Summary: Obi-Wan's thoughts on the night before he is knighted. A sequel to "A Change of Season and "A Trial of Faith."
Warnings: Um . . . Angst.
Disclaimers: Not mine, no money changed hands, don't sue, all in fun, etc.
Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated, if you're so inclined.
Notes: Thanks to Gloriana Reginata who did an amazing job betaing this story. Besides shouldering the onerous task of reminding me that there are actually rules about grammar and spelling (huh?), even more amazing, she actually made me think about what I was writing.(No mean feat, boys and girls.) Thanks Gloriana!
Thanks also to Kimber Lite, who long ago did a lovely job betaing an earlier version of this story, and has probably been wondering what rock I've been hiding it under.
You are here, my Master. Living. You float in this quiet room of the palace infirmary where the doctors have left you to the bacta, shaking their heads in wonder at you.
You are living. It is a suddenly interesting concept for me. Living -- a process I have realized has a definite beginning and ending.
And then there is dying. Another word I have been dwelling on tonight. You were dying. It is also a process with a definite end, although its beginning is not so clear to me.
When did your dying begin? When the Sith thrust his weapon through your body? Or perhaps earlier when you rushed ahead without me? Or when you were so foolish as to keep me from our bond despite the desperate need for us to fight in tandem? Or was it even earlier, when you saw your supposed death and first locked me from your mind?
Maybe it truly does not matter. For your dying ended, but not with death. Not this time.
Oh, you came close enough, if that is any sop to your pride. Death was crouched over you like an eager scavenger, ready to snatch you up. But I drove him away with a desperate flailing of my arms and a scream to rip the heavens apart. Perhaps it was simple embarrassment at having to watch my antics, but whatever the reason, death flew from you with empty claws, despite your vision.
You wonder how I know of that, when you sought so arduously to keep me ignorant? I saw your vision, Master. I felt your conviction that you would die. For at the last your shields could not hold me out; you were too weak and I was too desperate.
Yes, Master, I hold it out for your reprimand. I was desperate as I watched your dying. I was desperate and frightened and angry and full of suffering. Not very Jedi-like at all and not wise. But it ended your dying, so I can hardly regret it. Can I?
We have both been unwise lately; you, I think, even more so than I. It is no doubt disrespectful to say such a thing to you, but I do not suppose it matters much anymore. You have long been fallible in my eyes, Master. Perhaps since the day you so unexpectedly took me to your bed and I felt the desperate want in your touch. But you have never been so fallible as you were today. So many mistakes. Blocking me out and leaving us isolated and crippled when we two know how to fight as one: that was one of the worst, but there were so many more. Shall I enumerate them? No? Well, at least let me say, I cannot believe you allowed that feint to fool you.
Yes, I am full of disrespect tonight, and I beg your pardon. I would offer you the excuse of extreme weariness which is making me manic, but you have never liked excuses. I suppose, as I said before, that none of it really matters. Master Yoda has decided I have taken and passed my Trials. I am to be knighted tomorrow, by which time Master Yoda has pronounced--and surely you will not disobey him-that you will awake; or actually, as I believe he put it, wake, you will.
So tomorrow, I will be knighted. There does seem something rather rushed and off-hand about the whole thing, but no doubt you would chide me for being overly sensitive.
But I have dreamed of this, as all padawans do. I once pictured some knight or master choosing me out of all others as padawan-"I take you, Obi-Wan, as my padawan leaner," as I looked up (or down--I was not particular about whom it would be, not until I first laid eyes on you) into a gaze that shone with approval. In the same way, I have pictured my knighting too. The day you would call me to your side and tell me that I was ready, and I would see the quiet pride in your eyes.
Traditionally, tonight should be spent in meditation. If we were on Coruscant, you would be kneeling behind me, out of sight, but present to guide me one last time as I meditated on the meaning of what my Trial had taught me. I have always rather suspected that the presence of masters served another purpose as well, namely keeping exhausted candidates from dozing off-- the trials are suppose to be trying after all.
I can feel you glaring. Yes, my sense of humor is just as horrid as you have always said.
Tonight, like any proper candidate, I should be meditating on what I have learned in my "trial." What have I learned, Master? That the Dark is stronger than I ever imagined? That my Master is mortal? That being kicked off a platform and falling over a hundred feet really, really hurts? Ah, I am being silly again.
But you have to admit, this is hardly a proper knighthood vigil. It seems, as always, you and I do things in an irregular fashion. After all, usually masters choose their padawans first, then bond with them and then go on missions. You and I are the only pair I've ever heard of that arranged things in the exact opposite order. If it is any consolation to you, I suspect this continual lack of proper procedure is more my doing than yours. No doubt everything always went smoothly before you took me as your apprentice. With me, things always seem to go to wrong, and I apparently just drag you along, will you or nil you. But I suppose this is hardly flattering for you either, to hear that your fate has been directed by the incompetencies of your padawan, who did not even have the decency to let you die at your self- designated hour.
So whatever the cause, I can hardly complain if my knighting, like my apprenticing, is not exactly a traditional affair. But I wonder what I shall do when my own padawan--should such an unfortunate individual ever come to exist--is ready to be knighted and looks to me for guidance. Shrug, and try to look inscrutable? It works well enough for you when you have no idea what you're talking about--though of course you never shrug--but I think I should look sheepish instead.
I feel as if you are practically glaring holes through me now. Respect and proper manners and all that, I suppose, even though right now you are floating naked and unconscious in yellowish slime with a breather down your throat. But as I said, starting tomorrow my manners, or lack thereof, will no longer be your concern. You have new headaches now. The boy will prove to be a handful, and I wish you luck with him. You will need it, I suspect, although I know you do not believe in luck.
You do not know it yet, but Anakin blew up the droid control ship. Quite a feat for a nine- year-old boy. Perhaps it is this which has bestirred the Council, or perhaps it is the realization of the futility of trying to thwart your will, but whatever their reasons, they have agreed: you may take the boy as your padawan.
I rather think it is the latter that has convinced them, for the boy reeks of danger. You will not hear of it, but you are hardly in a state to bid me be silent now. So I will tell you again: I can see the Darkness hanging over him like a noxious cloud. I wonder that you do not see it, or perhaps you, like the Council, for some reason you will not explain, have chosen to ignore it. But I have done my duty and presumed to warn you as I could. Anakin is not my concern, and I confess that I am relieved.
Anakin is all yours, and you are all his, as you wanted.
For now, I will watch over you, like a scarecrow over a sleeping field lest death flutter too near again. When you are well enough to leave the bacta, I will go, for you will have no more need of me then.
You do not protest that, my Master, and I cannot say I am surprised. No doubt you will miss me a bit, especially on cold nights, but I know how single-minded you are. You have taken up a new task and it shall occupy you utterly, at the cost of all else. For a moment, I will admit, I foolishly hoped that today would have softened the ferocity of your convictions, but I know better than that, having seen into your mind. Even faced with the prospect of death, you worried mainly after the boy. Oh, it was done in true Jedi fashion, I know. The fate of the universe, and all that, but Master, I find I cannot like the zeal of your convictions.
Or perhaps it is merely that I am selfish, for on this night, the fate of the universe does not interest me. All I can think about right now is that, while you might not have deliberately taught the lesson I struggled with that night on the queen's ship, it was the lesson I was meant to learn. For of all things in the universe, I fear losing you the most. And a Jedi may not fear.
When I reported to the Council, they did not censure me for holding on to your life. Master Yoda, I'm afraid, only snorted when I spoke of your certainty of death. But while I may be forgiven for my refusal to release you into death, I will hardly be allowed to stay with you now. A Master is devoted to his Padawan, a Knight to his Journeys. And while I once thought that you and I would graduate to comrades in our travels, I now see it will not be so.
I did not sleep that night on the queen's ship, nor have I any night since. Instead, I have meditated, trying to accept the coldness of the silence that has been the only sound between us. Oh, words we have had--the utterly inadequate sounds passing our lips. Waiting for the battle to begin, I wanted to tell you something but only found out how stilted and petty words are between us without the flow of emotion. Your voice was warm enough, but it did not touch me, and the words were pathetically inadequate. I left you feeling worse than when I had come to you, resolved to speak. As though you had patted me on the head and sent me on my way with a false smile.
And now? Now, knowing that you thought those empty words were the last that would ever pass between us before you left me, left me with the burden of your convictions to bear? When in your Force-forsaken vision you felt, for a moment, the pain I felt when I knelt beside your dying body?
It makes me want to howl at you through the bond which I have forced open again.
Yes, you are alive. And I can even sense you now. But I am still as cold and as alone as I was that night. When you wake you will not need to raise your shields against me again, my Master, for tomorrow you will break the bonds between us. And I must make sure I do not break along with them.
You are alive, and that is all that should matter to me, for just as easily I could be holding my vigil over your funeral pyre; but I find I am greedy and it is not enough.
So it seems I have return to where I started. Living and dying. Suitable topics for a knighthood vigil, I suppose. I wonder when they started for me, my Master, the living and the dying. Oh, I know when my living began. It is easy enough to see. It was the day you called me padawan. But my dying? It is less clear. Perhaps it was when you spoke those words--you know the ones--before the Council, or perhaps, later, when you touched me but left your shields raised against me, or perhaps it was when I saw the creature drive his weapon through your body.
But perhaps I am confusing your dying with my own. Actually, my Master, I rather suspect that for me it begins now. I think it is now, now while you are living, now while I am saying good-bye to you.
End