Master
Apprentice  Archive
The Sleeping Wizard
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Pairing: Q/O
Categories: A/U, Drama, Angst
Rating: PG (Sorry! Call me the product of a Disney-saturated childhood, but somehow fairy tales and complete smut just didn't seem to mix!)
Archive: Sure, if somebody wants to archive it...
Feedback: Yes, please! E-mail: ladysalieri@aol.com
Warnings: This story follows Obi-Wan from the ages of 10-18. I honestly don't think there's anything to offend even the strongest opponent of chan, but I thought I'd mention the age thing, just the same.
Note: I freely admit this is a strange one, and I felt I had to justify this universe a bit, first. The main story is set in a world where everyone is born, lives, and dies with brown eyes, and poor blue-eyed Obi-Wan is looked on as some kind of freak. That may seem hard to imagine, but as I was writing this, I was picturing what life might be like in OUR universe for someone born with, say, glowing red eyes. Freaky, right? So hopefully, in that context, Obi's (mis-)adventures in this world won't seem quite so hard to believe.
Special note: This story is dedicated to Fuumin, whose drawing of Obi kissing a sleeping Qui-Gon in her zine "Hot Jedi Knight" (haven't got it yet? what are you waiting for?) was the inspiration for this fic.
PROLOGUE
From the moment two bright blue moons rose in the night sky above Jinn Castle, the elders knew that the upcoming birth would be special.
The unborn babe was already considered a miracle by many; Lord and Lady Jinn had remained childless through fifteen years of marriage, and it had long been believed Lady Jinn was too old to produce an heir to the extensive Jinn holdings. Her late pregnancy had been as unexpected as it was cherished--though it was feared the Lady's advancing age would make her pregnancy and labor perilous to both mother and child.
Yet, confounding all the doomsayers, Lady Jinn had remained in good health throughout the long months of her confinement, and her labor... though it had stretched on through most of the evening and night, had remained surprisingly trouble-free. And when her newborn son drew his first breath and opened up sky-colored eyes on the world, it was clear that Fate's gifts had not ended with the miracle of birth.
Five days later, Lord and Lady Jinn welcomed knight, villager, and servant alike into their home to join in celebration of Qui-Gon Jinn's birth. Witches and wizards journeyed from all across the kingdom of Coruscant to deliver life blessings to the baby. Part prophesy, part enchantment, these powerful spells would wind tendrils of magic around the newborn's life force and shepherd him to his destiny. When the radiant new mother carried the young babe into the Great Hall, the disciples of magic lined up to speak their blessings one by one.
"Beloved by all," said one, "he will be a champion of those too powerless to fend for themselves."
"Perhaps the greatest wizard this kingdom has ever known," said another, "and the strength of his convictions shall be no less great than that of his magic."
And so it went, down the line, till the very last wizard had pronounced his life blessing--when a sudden gust of wind blew open the vast doors of the Hall to reveal a wizened old woman dressed entirely in black. The crowd of people fell back as the woman hobbled forward, with the help of a thick wooden staff, their faces shocked and unnerved by the obvious power and the air of menace that hovered about the woman.
"I have come to deliver a life blessing, too," the woman said, coming to halt a few feet away from the boy.
Lady Jinn clutched the child convulsively closer to her chest and shot a nervous look at her husband. The old woman's eyes glittered at the betraying reaction and she sneered at the new parents. "Is the blessing of one such as me unwelcome for a child of your womb, Lady Jinn?" she asked threateningly.
Lady Jinn cleared her throat and revealed the babe to her with every evidence of reluctance. "No, of course not," she said warily. "All... all blessings for our son are welcome."
The witch gave a chuckle that did little to ease the good lady's fear. "Qui-Gon Jinn," she said, drawing out the baby's name with a sinister relish. "Great magician, avatar of justice, and hero to the downtrodden. My blessing for him is this: Struck down at the age of forty in battle with an outlying land, his early death and failure to train an apprentice in his path will end the use of magic in this land and plunge the kingdom into a hundred years of war."
The old woman surveyed the appalled faces of the crowd around her, her face splitting in a malicious grin at the turmoil her words had created. With an elaborate flourish, she pulled a thin dagger from the sleeve of her robe and held it poised above her chest.
"Stop her!" an elder cried. A pair of men near the witch dove forward to wrench the weapon from the old woman's hands, but her reactions were too quick for them; she plunged the dagger into her heart with a loud cackle, the harsh sound echoing in the reception chamber even as her gnarled body fell lifeless to the floor.
The silence in the vast room was palpable; the room's occupants staring in stunned bewilderment at the grisly sight on the ground before them.
"Wh-what does this mean?" Lady Jinn asked finally, drawing the precious bundle in her arms even more tightly against her chest.
"It is a curse of the heart's blood," a nearby wizard rasped, his face white and pinched with shock. "The strongest curse in the dark discipline, and one we are powerless to reverse. I am terribly sorry, my lady."
"But this can't be!" Lord Jinn cried, gaping in disbelief at the assembled mages. "You can't seriously mean my son is doomed to this fate, simply because this... this creature killed herself in my Great Hall?!"
The silence that met this protest struck the man like a blow and brought tears to his wife's rich brown eyes. "I... I can't stay here," she stammered, turning to flee. "I must..."
"Wait!" a soft voice called out. "Perhaps I may help."
A young, dark-skinned woman in a witch's robe stepped forward from open doorway of the Jinn Hall. "I was late in arriving, my lord and lady, and have yet to deliver my life blessing."
Lady Jinn looked back at the woman, her eyes glittering with a desperate hope. "Can you break the curse?" she pleaded.
The woman's face fell. "I regret my powers are not strong enough to break a curse of the heart's blood, my lady," she said. "The most I can do is this: There will be a battle in your son's fortieth year, and your son will receive a terrible injury. But the blow will not kill him. Instead, he will fall into a deep healing trance, where he will remain... untouched and unaging... for a hundred years." The young witch sighed. "I can do nothing about the war that will follow his loss; nor can I shorten the length of your son's enchantment. But I can promise that your son's awakening will presage the dawn of a new era of peace for our land... and bring him the greatest happiness a man can know in his life."
"That's not enough!" Lord Jinn exclaimed, his face red with impotent rage. "It's..."
He broke off as a gentle hand touched his arm. "It is enough, husband," Lady Jinn said softly. "It will have to be."
Before long, it was obvious that Qui-Gon Jinn would be everything his life blessings had promised and more. He was a good-hearted child, gentle and kind, and while his high spirits sometimes led him to acts of rebellion, he was so charming and polite it was impossible to fault him for his occasional misbehavior.
At the age of twelve, Qui-Gon was apprenticed to no less a personage than the great wizard Yoda, oldest and wisest of the kingdom's wizards, and personal mage to the king himself. It was a sad day for the boy when he left home to lodge with his master at the royal palace, but before long, his homesickness gave way to the joys of learning his new discipline.
Qui-Gon proved to be an apt student, moving swiftly from rote memorization of simple spells, to increasingly complex and intricate conjurings. By the age of eighteen, he was writing his own spells, with approaches so unique yet successful that his master often considered himself the learner in this pairing as much as the teacher.
Strong was Master Yoda in the magic, but not strong enough to cheat Fate; he passed away when Qui-Gon was twenty-five. Qui-Gon's first act as the king's new personal wizard was to go out and seek an apprentice.
Perhaps it was over-confidence, or perhaps the shadow of the heart's blood curse Qui-Gon had learned of in his early childhood, but Qui-Gon chose for his apprentice the very first candidate he lay eyes on--a boy by the name of Xanatos. Xanatos was incredibly strong in the magic, but it soon became evident to all but Qui-Gon himself that his apprentice--the eldest son of one of the king's royal cousins--missed his former life of extravagant wealth and resented the strict austerity of the magic discipline. It came as a surprise, then, to no one except Qui-Gon Jinn when, some ten years later, the boy he had trained and loved like a son cast off his training and fled the kingdom.
A few years after Xanatos' betrayal, a disturbing set of events was brought to the attention of the king. In the past several months, no less than thirty of the land's most skilled wizards and witches had died in mysterious accidents. The trend was alarming not only for the unlikelihood that it was mere coincidence, but because such witches and wizards were the kingdom's primary defense against its aggressive, even barbaric, neighboring lands. The king gave Qui-Gon the task of investigating these events, but neither his efforts, nor the increased vigilance of all the remaining mages, could prevent still more of their discipline from meeting untimely deaths.
News of Coruscant's weakened defenses soon spread to neighboring lands; the first kingdom to take advantage of this breach was the north-lying land of Telos. The king's finest warriors and few remaining mages rushed to defend Coruscant's northern borders, but the Telosian army was unstoppable. Anticipating their enemy's moves and outfighting their troops with an ease that could only have come from the work of a powerful mage, the Telosians broke through Coruscant's forces, and soon the battle had reached the very doors of the king's royal palace.
Qui-Gon pleaded with the king for permission to join the battle, but the wizard had just passed the fortieth anniversary of his birth, and the king knew all too well of the heart's blood curse upon him. Constrained by his oath of loyalty to the king, Qui-Gon had no choice but to stay behind as the king himself joined the battle for Coruscant's survival.
Qui-Gon was in the palace's uppermost tower, sending spell after spell through the distance to strengthen the armor, guide the swords, and lift the hearts and spirits of His Majesty's forces when he felt the presence of one he'd not felt in nearly five years. He descended the steps of the tower and returned to his workshop, where a black haired, sword-bearing man stood waiting for him.
"Xanatos," Qui-Gon said icily. "I knew I'd find your hand in all this."
"Knew it, perhaps, but couldn't stop it," Xanatos taunted, his sword flashing out to halt Qui-Gon's stealthy progress toward the pair of swords hung on the wall beside him. "Seems Coruscant's greatest wizard isn't so great after all."
"You haven't won yet, Xanatos," Qui-Gon warned. "You won't make it out of here alive, you see, and without your spells to contend with, Coruscant's troops just might carry the day."
Xanatos threw his head back in a mocking laugh. "That's what I always liked about you, Master," he said, "you were always so ridiculously sure of yourself. But I know all about the curse on you, Qui-Gon, and I know you've just reached your fortieth year." He raised his sword up in preparation to strike, grinning evilly in anticipation. "How does it feel, Master, to know you trained the very man who's going to bring you to your ultimate fate?"
In a flash of motion, Qui-Gon stretched out one long arm to topple a nearby table, sending its contents crashing to the floor at Xanatos' feet. Xanatos danced backwards, knowing that many of Qui-Gon's spells involved acids and other dangerous substances, and Qui-Gon took advantage of the moment to dash over to the swords on the wall. He brought a sword up just in time to deflect a heavy blow from Xanatos' sword; their swords clashed and Qui-Gon used his superior strength to throw Xanatos back several feet.
The two battled for some time in the cluttered workroom, their missed blows destroying more equipment and sparking a fire that consumed Qui-Gon's precious spell-books and journals. Xanatos had been well-trained as a swordsman, but Qui-Gon's experience made the outcome inevitable; his sword finally slipped through the younger man's guard and delivered a mortal wound to the gut.
Xanatos dropped his sword and fell to the floor, and the older wizard kicked the sword out of his reach. His former apprentice lay looking up at him, a line of blood bubbling out from his mouth as he tried to speak.
"Qui-Gon," he rasped, his voice nearly inaudible. "Couldn't... help... wanted to..." He stopped, a painful cough ripping through him and bringing more blood up from the man's punctured lung.
Qui-Gon tossed his own sword to the side and knelt at the dying man's side. Xanatos stretched out a trembling hand towards him, and the wizard grasped it in his own... only to break free at the feel of a small prick on his finger. He looked down at his hand to see a pinpoint of blood welling up, and his eyes met his former apprentice's in shocked comprehension.
Xanatos laughed, the sound thick with the blood in his mouth and throat, but no less sinister for all that. "Seems we both die here, Qui-Gon," he whispered, as his eyes hazed over and closed. "A fair trade."
Qui-Gon struggled to his feet, nearly doubling over at the same moment as the poison in that pinprick sent tremors of sheer agony coursing through his veins. No time for an antidote, even if he knew what poison this was, and, besides, Xanatos would undoubtedly have strengthened the poison with a magic spell. He could enter a healing trance, he knew.... but dammit, he wasn't just going to submit blindly to the fate decreed for him all those years ago.
He dragged himself from the room, staggering painfully towards the nearest room with a view of the distant battle, intending to hold the spells protecting his people till the instant that death overtook him. But no sooner had he reached his goal when the stabbing pain drove him to his knees and a creeping darkness stole over his senses. He fell to the floor, and his unconscious mind took over, weaving a spell of protection over him as he slipped into a deep healing trance.
The battle raged on without Qui-Gon, and Coruscant did indeed carry the day. But with its army in disarray and no magicians to hold the borders, the victory would be short lived. The next challenge would come from the west-lying Malastare, and still other challenges would follow in the years after that. As Qui-Gon slept on in his protective healing trance, king after embattled king fought to keep Coruscant alive, and the memories of peace and the order of mages who once preserved that peace grew dimmer and dimmer in the minds of Coruscant's people....
PART ONE
A rickety, horse-driven carriage rolled up the drive of the royal palace and came to a stop outside the main entrance. The carriage door banged open and a short, stout man with thin white hair and a red face leapt down from the coach. He was followed by a ginger-headed boy, perhaps ten years of age, who struggled gamely to keep pace with the older man, even though his small frame seemed in immediate danger of toppling under the weight of the bulky travel pack on his shoulders.
The uniformed guards stationed at the palace entrance eyed the visitors suspiciously as they approached, but they allowed the pair to pass through the main doors unchallenged. As the two entered the palace's colossal main hall, they were met by a severe-looking woman of an indiscriminate age, dressed in a plain black gown.
"Yes?" the woman asked imperiously, her lips curling in obvious distaste at the pair's bedraggled appearance. "May I help you?"
"Holdmastr Kenobi, ma'am," the man said, giving the woman an awkward bow. "From the North Province. My son Obi-Wan, here, he were invited to train at the palace."
"Ah. Yes, of course," the woman replied simply. "This way, please."
Without further ceremony, the woman turned away and led the father and son through a back exit in the main hall. The pair followed her through a series of long corridors and twisting staircases, moving away from the lavishly decorated central area of the palace and into a smaller, more utilitarian wing. Finally, the woman drew to a halt before a thick wooden door, which opened up into a tiny bedchamber.
"This is where your son will be staying, Holdmaster," she announced. "Most of the other first-year apprentices are lodged on this corridor as well. They'll all be at lessons just now, but I'll arrange for one of the instructors to come by and acquaint your son with his new duties as soon as lessons conclude for the day."
She looked down at the small boy with condescension thinly disguised by a veneer of benevolence. "I hope you appreciate the honor you've received here, young man. Only the sons of our king's most valued landholders are invited to train at the palace. Most of the finest knights in this kingdom have got their starts here, and if you work hard and don't mess about, perhaps one day you'll find yourself joining their ranks."
"Yes, ma'am," the boy said softly, his eyes fixed on the floor at her feet. "Thank you, ma'am."
The woman scowled at the boy's mumbled response and hunched posture. "Perhaps the first lesson you'll learn here, young man," she said sternly, "is that it's impolite not to look at someone when speaking to them."
The boy flinched at the sharp reprimand. "Yes, ma'am," he replied, lifting his eyes from the floor with an obvious reluctance.
The woman's thin hands fluttered up to her mouth. "Oh!" she gasped, her own eyes meeting the boy's father's in absolute shock. "H-his eyes! They're... they're blue!"
"Yeah?" the boy's father asked defensively. "And what if they are? No one said the boys who come here had to have normal colored eyes, did they?"
The woman looked, for a brief moment, as if she might try to argue the point, but then she collected herself and acknowledged the man's words with a nod. She returned her attention to the small boy before her; her eyes brushed over his face, flickered indecisively, then slid to a point somewhere over the boy's left shoulder. "Yes, well..." she mumbled, "I'm sure you'd like to unpack and freshen up from your journey, so if you'll both excuse me, I'll see to it that an instr..."
"Here! Just a moment!" Holdmaster Kenobi called out, halting the woman in mid-flight. "No reason why I should have to wait around with the boy, is there? I mean, the instructor don't need to show me around the place, and there's other business I needs to be taking care of before I can head home to the keep."
"Er... no, I suppose not," the woman replied, giving the Holdmaster an odd look. "It's just that most fathers..." She broke off suddenly and pressed her mouth into a thin line, as if chastising herself for a near breach of etiquette, then went on. "Of course, if you'd prefer, Holdmaster, you may come with me now, and I'll direct you to the main hall. Your son shouldn't have much more than an hour's wait before lessons end and an instructor comes round to help settle him in."
"Thank you, good lady," the Holdmaster said, with a bow. The woman swept from the room and he followed, grasping the door handle as he passed. "You be a good boy, now, Obi-Wan," he called merrily over his shoulder. "Don't go putting your old paps here to shame."
The door closed before Obi-Wan could manage a response, and the sound of footsteps moved quickly away from the room. The boy stared bewilderedly at the bedchamber's rough wooden door, listening as the last echo of sound died away. When complete silence filled the air around him, making the small room seem cavernously empty, the boy slid the pack from his trembling shoulders and clutched it tightly to his chest.
"Goodbye, Father," he said quietly.
PART TWO
"But the king knew the evil wizard would come, so he had thousands of soldiers lying in wait for him at the castle. The wizard fought like a cornered demon. He called up this powerful spell that tore the very souls from the soldiers' chests as they drew near him. But the king's forces were too great for even the wizard to turn back. They struck at the wizard again and again with their swords, and finally the wizard was vanquished. They locked him up in an enchanted glass tomb and stored him in the old wing of this castle, where he lies to this very day..."
Bruck Chun finished his tale with a satisfied grin and looked out over his wide-eyed, enrapt audience. His own eyes narrowed ominously, though, at the one boy who seemed unmoved by his tale, a small, ginger-headed boy who sat on the opposite side of the study room, his head buried deep in a book.
"What's the matter, Freaky-Wan?" Bruck called out in challenge. "You don't like scary stories? Afraid you'll have nightmares and wet yourself in your sleep?"
Twelve-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi looked up from his book and tossed Bruck an irritated glare. In the two years Obi-Wan had lived at the royal palace, he'd never quite figured the white-headed boy out. Most of the other boys were quite happy to avoid a boy whose bright blue eyes, they felt, rendered him freakish and unnatural. Bruck, on the other hand, seemed to like nothing better than to single Obi-Wan out as the butt of countless pranks and malicious jokes. Obi-Wan tried his best, as a rule, to steer clear of the boy, but the small number of apprentices in their level and Bruck's single-minded determination had made avoidance an impossible task.
Very well, Obi-Wan thought with a sigh; he'd heard Bruck's ridiculous story--much as he'd tried to ignore it--and if Bruck wanted a confrontation, a confrontation is what he'd get.
"Was that supposed to be a scary story?" Obi-Wan replied, folding his arms impudently across his chest. "It just sounded stupid to me. If this wizard was so evil, why would they keep his coffin here in the castle? Why not bury it somewhere, or take it out and dump it at sea?"
Bruck's face grew red with anger. "Because he's still alive, you dimwit!" he shot back furiously. "If anyone moves the coffin, the wizard might wake up and start stealing people's souls all over again!"
"After a hundred years?" Obi-Wan scoffed. "He must be a dried up pile of bones by now. Hardly something to give me nightmares."
"Oh, yeah?" Bruck answered. "Well, if you're so brave, why don't I take you there to see him for yourself?!'
Obi-Wan considered the other boy closely, surprised that Bruck was willing to carry his charade this far. Still, he supposed that the boy could hardly back down in front of all his friends, and he was undoubtedly not expecting Obi-Wan to call his ludicrous bluff.
"Don't do it, Obi-Wan," Garen Muln--the only boy in the class who was even polite to Obi-Wan and, thus, the closest thing Obi-Wan had to a friend--whispered urgently.
"Ah, go on!" one of Bruck's friends put in. "What do you have to be afraid of, anyway? Not even a dark wizard would want to suck the soul from a demon-spawned freak!"
The cruel taunt was the final push Obi-Wan needed. "All right, Bruck," he replied coolly. "Why don't you show me where this wizard of yours is?"
The room Bruck led him to was in the oldest part of the royal palace. Bruck, along with several other boys, had followed Obi-Wan only as far as the turn in the hallway; now they stood there, watching anxiously, as Obi-Wan reached out for the door handle.
The door swung open with a dreadful creak, and Obi-Wan's heart leapt to his throat at the sound. He looked back at the other boys, wondering if he could gracefully back down from this challenge, but the thought of Bruck's gleeful response and the taunts of cowardice Obi-Wan would have to endure bothered him more than the fear of what lay ahead, so Obi-Wan took a cautious step into the room.
The bedchamber was dark, lit only by intermittent patches of sunlight that peeked through the tattered curtains on the room's two windows. What might once have been lavish furnishings were now crumbled with disrepair; cobwebs clung to every surface from the room and a heavy coat of dust obscured the colors of the thick rugs that covered the floor. The air was oppressive and hot, with an unpleasant, musty feel to it that made it almost impossible to breathe.
On a large dais in the far corner of the room sat what appeared to be an immense glass coffin. Beneath the layers of dust that had gathered on the coffin's surface, Obi-Wan could just make out the figure of a man, lying perfectly still on a bed of plush red cushions. Obi-Wan's heart raced with fear at the eerie sight and the apparent proof of Bruck's tale, yet he found himself moving still further into the room, drawing closer to the entombed wizard. As he approached, he noted absently that only the tracks of small animals could be seen on the dusty floor. Whatever the truth of Bruck's story might be, it was obvious Bruck had never been brave enough to investigate the room himself.
When he reached the mysterious coffin, Obi-Wan looked back over his shoulder to the open doorway. Bruck and the others were out of sight, but the thought of his sudden aloneness only stiffened the boy's resolve. He stepped up onto the dais, crinkling his nose at the thick dust that still obscured his view of the figure beneath. Grasping the long sleeve of his tunic in his hand, Obi-Wan swept his arm across the head of the coffin and stared down through the glass lid.
The wizard's eyes were open.
With a startled cry, Obi-Wan threw himself backwards, tumbling awkwardly off the dais and onto the floor. He sat there, dazed by his fall, paralyzed with fear, expecting at any moment to see the wizard rise from his tomb to reach out and drain the life from Obi-Wan's body. It was several long, terrified minutes before the boy allowed himself to breathe again, the stillness before him reassurance that his soul was not, in fact, on the verge of being claimed by a demon wizard entombed in glass.
Obi-Wan laughed, in a combination of amusement and relief, shaking his head at the fertile imagination that had allowed him to be so shaken by Bruck Chun's ridiculous story. He rose to his feet and climbed up to the coffin again, curious to see whether his glimpse of the wizard's eyes had been a figment of that same imagination as well. But as he looked down into the glass structure, the wizard's eyes gleamed back at him, open, unblinking... and unmistakably blue.
Blue. A soft, deep, soothing blue, to be precise--the shade of late summer skies and the first blue-blossoms of spring. A shade very much like the one Obi-Wan saw in his lodging-room mirror each morning... and completely and utterly unlike the color of every other pair of eyes Obi-Wan had seen in all of his short existence.
The world around Obi-Wan sifted away as he stared down into those clear, unblinking blue eyes. He leaned forward over the coffin, one hand reaching out to touch the glass surface reverently, as if sight alone were not enough to convince him that the wizard's eyes were indeed the same unnatural color as his own.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi!" The near shriek jolted the boy back to his surroundings; he turned to see one of the school wardens standing horror-struck just outside the room's doorway.
"Get out here right now!" the warden bellowed, her hand stretched commandingly out towards Obi-Wan. She slammed the door shut behind them as he reluctantly obeyed, then clasped a rough hand around his arm and dragged the boy away from the room. Bruck and the other boys were nowhere to be seen; they had obviously either run off upon sight of the warden, or already been caught and sent on their way.
"It's bad enough," the warden said sharply, "you flashing those demon-touched eyes of yours around, bringing who knows how much ill luck down on these great walls, without having you open up doors on old curses, too."
"Do you know who he is, then?" Obi-Wan asked, the warden's words barely registering against the rush of his overwhelming curiosity about the entombed man. "Do you know he got like that? How long he's been there?"
"No, and I don't care to, either," came the swift answer. "I stay away from curses, so that they'll stay away from me. You'd be wise to learn that yourself, young man." She released Obi-Wan's arm, then, and gave him a quick swat on the behind. "Now, back to your room with you," she said. "It's well past your bedtime, and there'll be no telling your instructors you're too tired to work tomorrow."
Obi-Wan plowed through his evening meal and excused himself from the student dining room with all possible speed. After checking the hall to see that no other boys were around to note his direction, Obi-Wan slipped out of the students' wing and headed down to the servants' area on the ground floor.
The main kitchen was in a state of thinly controlled chaos, the many cooks and maids in the room busily preparing and arranging lavish dishes for the king and his court. Obi-Wan stepped warily into the kitchen, only just managing to dodge a covered-tray-bearing servant as he hurried out to the dining hall, and placed himself alongside the entrance, quietly waiting to catch someone's attention.
"Here, you!" the tart voice of the palace's head cook cried, as she spied Obi-Wan in his corner. "What you doing here in the kitchen, boy? Ain't you got better things to do than get in everyone's way?"
"If you please, ma'am," Obi-Wan said politely, "I made a bit of a spill in my room, and I was hoping to get a bucket of soap water and some cloths, so I can clean it up myself."
The cook gave a snort of laughter. "Imagine that!" she marveled, "a boy wanting to clean up after hisself! Well, lad, you can get all the supplies you like in that closet behind you, and there's a water pump there by the last oven. You be careful with that bucket, though," she warned, shaking a plump finger at him. "If I hear about anyone slipping on a puddle of water in one of these halls, I'll know who to come after, you hear?"
Obi-Wan nodded his understanding, then quickly gathered his cleaning supplies and left the kitchen. But, instead of heading back to his room, he once more made for the oldest wing of the king's palace. He marched into the wizard's chamber with a determined air--closing the door behind him this time, to prevent interruptions--and climbed up onto the dais.
"Hello, wizard," he said softly, peering down into the glass coffin. "It's me again... the boy from yesterday. Remember?"
He set the cleaning supplies down beside him, soaked a sponge in the soapy water inside the bucket, and began cleansing away the decades of dust from the wizard's tomb. "I was thinking about how lonely you must be," he explained to the motionless form beneath the glass, "stuck here in this coffin with no one to visit you, and I thought you could perhaps use a friend."
Obi-Wan re-soaked the sponge several more times, the coffin streaking some but now decidedly clearer, while his bucket of water took on a distinctly brown hue. "Of course, I don't want to be your friend if it turns out you really are a soul-stealing demon wizard," he warned solemnly, "but since Bruck's the one who thinks you're evil, that probably means you're good."
Task completed, Obi-Wan grinned happily at the entombed wizard, then hopped down from the dais. "I know you're supposed to be sleeping and all," he went on, "but I hope you don't mind if I open the windows a bit. It's too dark in here to see very well, and, besides, this place could really use some fresh air."
For nearly an hour, till the shadows cast by the setting sun almost encased the room in darkness, Obi-Wan worked on the wizard's room. He cleared cobwebs, dusted the furnishings, and shook out tapestries and rugs, chatting merrily to his silent companion all the while. His last act was to move a big, sturdy-looking chair from its spot near the fireplace and place it beside of the coffin.
"Well," he said then, brushing his hands with satisfaction, "I'm afraid that's the best I can do for now, friend wizard. I have to go now, or I'll be missed at evening roll call, but I'll return as soon as I can." He gathered his supplies and made as if to go, till a sudden thought stopped him in his tracks.
"By the way," he said to the wizard, "my name's Obi-Wan Kenobi. Pleased to meet you."
PART THREE
"Are you really a wizard? I guess you must be, or how else would you have cast this spell on your tomb... unless someone else did it for you? I wish I were a wizard, too. I'd break you out of this tomb so I could really talk to you... and then I'd turn my eyes brown, so I looked like everyone else."
"There's a big pond in the woods just beyond my father's keep. I used to sneak out as often as I could, to swim in the pond or skip rocks or to slide on its surface whenever it froze over. Are you from the north, too, wizard? You probably are, because you're so tall. My old nanny used to say the mountain weather made people grow up big and tough. It never seemed to work for me, though... and now that I'm not even living up north anymore, I guess I'll never be half as big as you are."
"I guess you wouldn't have noticed in this coffin of yours, but it's been pretty quiet around here these days. Lessons have ended and most of the other students went home to spend Winter Festivals with their families. I wrote Father to see if I could come home this time, but he says the snows are too deep in some of the mountain passes and he doesn't think I should risk it. Of course, the courier he sent to tell me this got through with no problems, but I guess I wasn't supposed to notice that. It doesn't really matter to me, though. It's much warmer and nicer here at the palace, and there's really no one I care to see at home, anyway. I thought I might stop by the kitchen later this week to see if there's any greenery left over from decorating the great hall. Wouldn't it be nice, wizard, if I did this room up for the holidays?"
"Swordmaster Windu had us sparring in full combat gear today," fourteen-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi said, curled up in his usual perch at the side of the sleeping wizard. "They couldn't find any chest guards or shoulder plates that were small enough to fit me--and, Deuce, was that stuff ever heavy--but I still managed to win both my matches. The Swordmaster says when I get my own gear, I should take the eye guard off my helmet. He says it isn't much protection against heavy blows anyway, and he thinks the sight of my eyes might be enough to scare opponents into making careless mistakes."
Obi-Wan chuckled some at the idea. "I guess it's nice to know these eyes of mine are good for something, isn't it?"
His fund of stories run short for the moment, Obi-Wan said goodbye to the wizard and headed back to the student's wing. He was just rounding a corner on the palace's main floor when he was nearly bowled over by a blur of brightly-colored motion.
"Oh!" the blur cried, in the voice of a mortified young girl. "I'm so sorry! I know I should never run in these halls, but I was just so anxious to go out and enjoy the nice weather!"
"It's all right," Obi-Wan said politely. "No real damage done."
The girl grinned up at him in gratitude, then her breath caught in a surprised gasp as she caught first sight of Obi-Wan's face. "You have blue eyes!" she exclaimed, her own eyes widening in amazement.
Obi-Wan's shoulders stiffened, his face closing off in preparation for the emotional wounds that typically followed such a comment. "So I've noticed," he replied combatively. "So what about it?"
The girl blinked at him for several moments, then collected herself and gave a casual shrug of the shoulders. "Well, nothing," she replied easily. "I've just never known anyone with blue eyes, except for my uncle Tran."
Now it was Obi-Wan's turn to gape in astonishment. "Y-your uncle has b-blue eyes?" he stuttered.
"Had," came the succinct answer. "He died a few years ago. People were always giving him weird looks and things, but he was the nicest man in the world. He used to visit our estate once a year, and he always had the best stories to tell." The girl paused, tilting her head at Obi-Wan inquisitively. "Are people always giving you weird looks, too?" she asked.
Still wrestling with the knowledge that this girl was not only undisturbed by the bizarre color of his eyes, but had actually known and cared for another with similar eyes, Obi-Wan could only manage to nod in response.
"Ah." The girl stepped forward and took Obi-Wan's hand in a firm grip. "Well, I won't give you any weird looks, I promise. My name's Bant Eerin, by the way. What's yours?"
Obi-Wan stared down for a minute at the hand resting so easily in his own, then his mouth curved in a wide, eager grin. "It's Obi-Wan," he answered, making eye contact with another--for perhaps the first time in his whole life--without the slightest hint of hesitation or fear. "Obi-Wan Kenobi."
"She's a companion to one of the king's younger daughters," Obi-Wan explained several weeks later, on his next visit to the wizard. "I said the princess must be an awful troll, if the king has to pay girls to be her friends, but Bant says it's not like that. She says it's an honor to be chosen for this duty, and that royal companions can ask for the highest bride-prices when it comes time for them to marry."
"Bride-prices," Obi-Wan repeated, infusing the word with every drop of scorn his adolescent soul could muster. "I don't think I'll ever get married, if it means giving all my money away to some girl."
"But Bant's not like the other girls I've seen around the palace," Obi-Wan went on. "She reads all the time, and she remembers it all, too. And she doesn't read just girl things, like romances and fairy tales. The other night, she took me out to one of the battlements and she told me that all the stars in the sky were really suns--just like the one in our sky--only they were so far away that our sun blocks them out in the day, and we can only see them when the sun goes behind our planet at night. It got me thinking that maybe all of those suns have planets too, and I wondered what life might be like on those other planets. Maybe there's one that's just the opposite of our world, where everyone has blue eyes, and it's the brown eyed people who seem strange." He smiled somewhat guiltily at the idea. "It might be nice to live in a world like that--just for a while--don't you think?"
Obi-Wan's brow furrowed in thought, one hand trailing absently across the top of the coffin. "I hope you don't mind, friend wizard," he continued, after a moment, "but I think Bant's my best friend now. You're still my oldest friend, of course, and I'll still visit you as often as I can. But it's nice to have a friend who actually talks back to me, you know? So I'll probably be spending most of my free time with her."
PART FOUR "Oh!" Bant exclaimed, peering down into the coffin with wide eyes. "He's handsome! I never expected him to be so handsome!"
The sixteen-year-old boy at her side gave Bant an odd look. "Why wouldn't he be handsome?" he asked.
Bant waved a hand about in an airy gesture. "Oh, well..." she said, fumbling for an explanation, "it's just, when you read about wizards, they're usually ancient and feeble--with strange, pointed hats and white beards stretching down to their toes."
Obi-Wan gave an amused snort at the response. "Wizards aren't born old, you know. Even the ones in your books must have started out young."
"True," his friend agreed readily, "but none of the wizards in my books seemed like they could've started out looking like this." Bant reached out and gave the corner of the coffin a sharp tug, her brow furrowing as the glass lid refused to so much as budge. "Have you ever tried to open this coffin, Obi?"
"Oh, sure," he replied, "lots of times. I tried picking the lock, tried sawing through the hinges... Once I even brought in a big cannonball from the artillery range and dropped it onto the lid." Obi-Wan shrugged helplessly. "It didn't even scratch the surface."
"So it really is enchanted," Bant mused, "and I guess the poor man is stuck here till somebody breaks the spell." She considered this for a moment, then her lips quirked upwards in a decidedly lascivious grin. "In the books, you know, it's always some lovely and virtuous maiden who saves the day... and I know someone who just might fit that description..."
Obi-Wan scowled, unaccountably annoyed by his friend's lighthearted raillery. "Forget it, Bant," he said gruffly. "If anyone breaks him out of this spell, it'll be me."
Bant considered her friend curiously for a moment, then broke out into delighted laughter. "Oh, Obi-Wan," she gasped, when she at last managed to control her amusement. "Only you could develop a crush on a hundred-year-old, enchanted wizard!"
Obi-Wan mouth opened in readiness to protest that statement, but Bant saved him the bother of the obvious lie. "Come on, lover boy," she said merrily. "Let's leave your handsome wizard in peace, then, before the power of my charms overcomes all your years of devoted spell-breaking."
Obi-Wan trudged back to his sleep room one cold autumn day, his spirits every bit as bleak as the weather. A particularly harsh strain of red fever had hit Coruscant's capital village some three weeks ago, and Bant had been among those sent from the palace to assist at the village sickhouse. Obi-Wan had received daily missives from Bant--telling him of her work there and (more importantly) assuring him of her continued good health--until yesterday, when he had returned from his afternoon lessons to find his mail canister alarmingly empty.
Obi-Wan had kept a tight rein on his anxiety--had reminded himself a hundred times that the lack of mail from his friend could mean nothing more than that Bant had been too busy to write--but there was another possibility, and it was that possibility which had kept him sleepless last night and hung like a dark cloud over his head through all of this long day of training.
As Obi-Wan drew closer to his sleep room, he could see a small roll of paper sticking out from the mail canister on the door. Obi-Wan closed the distance to his door in a mad dash and pulled the message from the box, his heart clenching as he saw that the writing on the address was not that of his beloved friend. Obi-Wan tore the ribbon from the rolled note, a thick knot of fear tightening in his gut, and made a quick scan of its contents. What he found there confirmed his worst fears.
Obi-Wan, the message read. Come immediately to sickhouse. Bant is ill, and calling for you. It was signed by a name Obi-Wan recognized as belonging to another of the princess's companions.
The thin slip of paper fell from his nerveless fingers. Obi-Wan was down the hall and on his way to the sickhouse almost before the note could flutter down to rest on the floor.
Obi-Wan sat stiffly at the side of the wizard's coffin, his eyes staring sightlessly into the distance. "She was so good, wizard," he said dully, "so kind and loving to the very end. She didn't curse the orders that had sent her down to the village, made her work long hours in that miserable sickhouse, till she was too beaten down to resist the fever herself. She just... just wished me good fortune till we meet in the next life, then she quietly slipped away."
Obi-Wan bent his head to rub at his swollen, aching eyes, then held his hands there as he gave a humorless laugh. "And do you know what kind of friend I was, wizard? As I sat there, watching her take that last breath, all I could think of was how much I wanted to scream at her. How could she do this to me? Didn't know how much I needed her? How could she abandon me like this, knowing my time with her had been the only light in a lifetime of loneliness and misery?"
A dark wave of suspicion rose suddenly in Obi-Wan's chest; he lowered his hands and scowled darkly at the still features of the man in the coffin. "Is that why you're in there, wizard?" he asked, his voice growing in volume along with his temper. "Is that why you hid yourself away from the world? Were you tired of the stares, the laughter, the constant fear and mistrust that surrounded you? Tired of wondering day after wretched, miserable day why Fate chose to curse you like this? Well, I'm not letting you escape from it, wizard, do you hear me?! I'm not!"
Pure, undiluted fury exploding in the back of his mind, Obi-Wan leapt to his feet, his chair tipping sideways and skittering off the dais. He stormed over to the fireplace and returned with a metal poker, which he wedged into the coffin's thick padlock. "You're going to feel pain, you're going to suffer," he went on, his teeth clenching and muscles quivering with his efforts to pry open the lock, "you're going to make friends and watch them die! You're going to feel loneliness so deep, you think you'll drown in it one day, and the thought brings you nothing but relief! There's no way, wizard; there's no way I'm going through this all on my own!"
He broke off his attack on the lock with a cry of frustration, then raised his arm and brought the poker down with all his might against the top of the coffin. Again and again he hammered the poker against the coffin, tears streaming unchecked down his cheeks and off his chin, till finally he hurled the poker across the room with a rasping sob and threw himself down atop the still-unmarred surface of the glass coffin.
"Let me in there!" he wailed, pounding his fists against the coffin lid. "Please, wizard, if you can hear me... please, please, let me in!" Obi-Wan lowered his head onto the smooth, cool surface and cried helplessly into his hands, his chest aching with the painful breaths and the bleeding emptiness of his grief. "I'm so tired, wizard," he sobbed, "so tired of it all. I just want to sleep now, do you understand me? I just want to sleep forever."
An insect buzzed in Obi-Wan's ear, and he pulled one hand from beneath his head to brush absently at the sound. The grass was ticklish against his tear-swollen cheeks, and the sun felt uncomfortably warm on his back. Obi-Wan pushed himself up from the ground, cringing as stiff muscles protested the movement, and looked around him in bemusement.
He was sitting on a grassy slope beyond the edge of a thick forest. Just below him, a vast, blue lake stretched out into distance, and a faint, misty outline of mountains was just visible on the horizon. The light breeze stirring the air around him was pleasant, and it carried with it the perfume of some unknown flower. Obi-Wan sighed, closing his eyes gratefully as a feeling of peace, the likes of which he had never known before, stole across his senses. He didn't know how he'd found his way here--didn't even know where here was--but he knew he never wanted to leave this place again.
"A perfect day and a perfect place for meditation, don't you agree?"
Obi-Wan's eyes snapped open as the rich voice intruded upon his reverie. He looked up and was shocked anew by the sight of the man standing over him. Tall--even taller, as viewed from this position, than Obi-Wan had ever realized--and broad shouldered, the wizard's warm smile and twinkling eyes welcomed him in and seemed to render the vast difference in their statures insignificant.
"How-?" The word was more a squeak than a question, yet it was all Obi-Wan could manage to say.
"I spent long hours in this very spot when I was a child," the wizard went on, seeming not to have heard Obi-Wan's choked utterance, "and even now I journey here as often as my work allows."
"Where... where are we?" Obi-Wan asked, finally succeeding at some level of coherence.
If the wizard was surprised by the admittedly strange question, he gave no sign of it. "We're on the southern shore of Rilj Prida," he answered, "just beyond the boundaries of the Dark Forest."
"Rilj Prida?" Obi-Wan repeated dimly. "But that's over a day from the palace, and I don't... Oh!" A light of comprehension finally dawned in Obi-Wan's befuddled mind. "I'm dreaming!"
The wizard raised a curious eyebrow at Obi-Wan. "Are you?" he asked. "Then I suppose I must be dreaming also." The wizard's gaze turned inward for a moment, as he considered the notion, then he smiled, seemingly untroubled by the idea. "I've heard it said that we all share the same dreams, but I never imagined that to be true in a literal sense."
The wizard seated himself gracefully on the ground beside Obi-Wan and then stretched out a hand in greeting. "Well, dream-sharer, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Qui-Gon Jinn."
"Qui-Gon Jinn," Obi-Wan repeated softly, torn between the thrill of finally hearing his wizard's name and doubt that this was anything more than a product of his own imagination. "And I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Concern darkened the wizard's brow as he studied Obi-Wan's somber expression. "Forgive me if I intrude, Obi-Wan Kenobi," he said quietly, "but this is not the sort of dream one might expect to spark such sadness in you."
"No," Obi-Wan acknowledged, "but if this really is a dream, I'll eventually have to wake up."
The wizard nodded his understanding, but felt obliged to question the sadness behind Obi-Wan's words. "It is best that way, my young friend," he replied. "Dreams can guide us, give us hope, even rescue us from our sorrows at time... but they are insubstantial for all that. True happiness is not something we can just create for ourselves in our sleep, but must be worked for in the real world."
"My best friend just died in the real world," Obi-Wan said, a touch of heat in his voice, then sighed heavily. "My only friend, really." He looked up into blue eyes gone liquid with sympathy, and soon he was spilling the account of Bant's illness and death all over again. "She was the only one who ever cared for me," he finished brokenly, turning his head away to look unseeingly at the grass beneath him, "and I... I wish I had died too."
The wizard considered Obi-Wan's bowed head for a moment. "I grieve for your loss, Obi-Wan," he said finally. " I too have felt a pain so great, it made the mere act of survival seem not worth the effort." He paused, then ran a gentle hand through the soft tresses of Obi-Wan's hair. "But consider this, young one. Would your friend be pleased to know you'd thrown away all the blessings Fate has given you because of her passing?"
"Blessings?" Obi-Wan's laugh rang hollow in his ears. "What blessings would I be throwing away?"
"Well," the wizard answered simply, "there's the magic, for one."
"Magic?" Obi-Wan asked, his eyes meeting the wizard's in surprise. "What magic?"
The wizard's eyes widened at the question. "Do you mean..." he sputtered, "is it possible that no one has explained this to you?" He shook his head in amazement at Obi-Wan's puzzled demeanor. "When a child is born with eyes the color of sky, it is a sign that Fate has blessed this child with the gift of magic. What has become of the wizards in your land, that there are none to teach you of your gift?"
"All dead, I suppose," Obi-Wan answered solemnly. "Or just... lost."
The wizard sat motionless for a long while, perhaps envisioning the sort of world where all wizardry had been lost. "I have searched far and wide for someone I could train in the discipline of magic," the wizard mused incongruously. "After my first attempt ended so badly, I began to think I might never find the one to follow my path. I think this meeting of ours was fated, Obi-Wan... and I think you are the one I have searched for all these years."
The wizard rose to his feet and looked back at the forest behind them. "There is still much I must do before I can seek you out, my young friend," he continued, "but I vow I will do so as soon as my task here is finished. Will you wait for me, Obi-Wan? Will you give me the chance to find you beyond the world of dreams?"
"I will, wizard," Obi-Wan answered, as the wizard moved away and disappeared among the trees. "I promise."
The verdant setting faded away into darkness, and Obi-Wan awoke from his dream.
PART FIVE
Eighteen-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi entered the wizard's room and closed the door softly behind him. He leaned briefly against its rough wooden surface, before squaring his shoulders and moving further into the room. Reaching the dais, he lifted the well-worn chair from its spot by the coffin and returned it to its original home by the fireplace. Finally, he stepped onto the dais himself and stood solemnly by the wizard's glass coffin.
"The Telosians have lain siege to our northern outposts," he said slowly, "and there's evidence Malastare plans to move against us as well. The king's army can't cover two borders on its own, so the king has put a call out for all able-bodied fighters to support our troops. There's a convey leaving tomorrow for the North Mountains... and it seems I'll be joining it."
Obi-Wan paused for a moment, deep in thought, his right hand trailing absently across the lid of the wizard's coffin. "I've known for almost a year now that our time together was coming to an end. I planned for it, readied myself as best as I could, and until the moment I learned of my new assignment, I truly thought I was prepared to say goodbye."
Tears stung the young man's eyes; he stopped, blinking furiously till his vision had cleared. "I know it's stupid to feel like this," he continued, "it's ridiculous to care at all for someone that's no more alive than... than the glass coffin around him--but you're the truest friend I ever had. You listened to me without scorn, you gave me comfort when I was troubled... you were there for me when I needed you, and I don't know how I'll manage the rest of my days without you."
"I'd like to think we'll see each other again someday, wizard... but the death toll at the borders has been high, and even if I survive this conflict, it is not often that a common soldier is invited to stay at the palace.
Obi-Wan's throat tightened with emotion, his voice aching with a hopeless desolation. "I waited for you, wizard. Waited and hoped, just as I'd promised, and I will continue to wait and hope for you as long as I live. Be well, my beloved friend... and may we find each other again one day, whether in this life or in the next."
Obi-Wan bent down and lay one cheek on the cool surface of the coffin lid, his arms slipping around the coffin as if to gather it up in an embrace. It was several long moments before the young man could tear himself away from the coffin. He turned away from the sleeping wizard, his eyes swimming with tears, and was about to step down from the dais when a loud thunk sounded behind him. He looked back toward the coffin and his mind froze in pure astonishment at the sight of the thick, impenetrable padlock lying on the floor. Moving back to the coffin as if in a dream, he reached out to grasp the coffin lid, and a small murmur of disbelief escaped him as the lid slid easily open along its hinges.
Slowly, timidly--hardly daring to move for fear of shattering this precious moment--Obi-Wan reached into the glass coffin. He lay his palm flat against the wizard's broad chest, as if testing the form's solidity, then slid his hand down to take the wizard's own hand in a light clasp.
The wizard's skin was warm to the touch, his fingers strong and impossibly work-roughened, despite all their years of disuse. Obi-Wan's thumb brushed across the back of the wizard's large hand, tracing the faint outlines of veins beneath the surface and savoring the soft friction of flesh against his own.
Senses reeling with a sudden, wild hope that the wizard's sleep might be ending at last, Obi-Wan leaned forward till the side of his head hovered mere inches above the wizard's lips. But no breath disturbed his hair or tickled the sensitive skin of his cheek, nor--as he moved his fingers up to rest on the wizard's wrist--could he find any trace of a pulse.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh, disappointment twisting in his chest and pushing a thin line of tears down his pale cheeks. He collected himself, after a moment, and made as if to draw back--only to find his gaze snared by his close proximity to the wizard's cerulean eyes. Blank and unwaveringly fixed on some point above Obi-Wan's head, the wizard's eyes were still undeniably entrancing. This close, Obi-Wan could see the thin rim of a darker blue that outlined the wizard's irises and the individual shape of each of the wizard's thick lashes.
Obi-Wan's gaze drifted down to the wizard's full lips, and--almost without conscious thought--he found himself drawing closer to meet those lips in a kiss. He lingered there briefly, enjoying the smooth texture of the wizard's lips and the pleasant tickle of the wizard's mustache against his skin, wanting to preserve the memory of this kiss forever in his mind...
...and then he nearly fell over from shock, as the wizard's lips moved beneath his own.
The first thing he was aware of were voices.
One voice, really, though it came to him in several different incarnations--first with the bell-like clarity of an eager young boy, then, heartbeats later, crackling and uncertain in the throes of adolescence. Most recently, the voice had grown softer, more mature... the deep, soothing tones of a boy on the threshold of manhood. The voice became clearer as he focused in on the sound, and now he could hear disturbing echoes of loneliness and sorrow beneath the careful, measured words.
"Goodbye..." the voice said, and he suddenly felt a painful, stabbing fear at the thought of being left here, in this place of cold and smothering darkness, all alone.
He struggled to follow the sound of the voice, fighting the insidious pull of lethargy and the siren call of the nothingness that surrounded him--then a warm hand closed around his, calming his thoughts and guiding him safely away from his tomb. A faint, musky scent filled his nostrils, a breath tickled the skin beneath his thin beard, and soft lips found his in the night. He pressed forward eagerly, giving a slight tug on the other's temptingly full lower lip, then angling his head for a better taste of the warm mouth against his own.
A faint gasp touched his ears as his tongue brushed against soft gums and even teeth; gentle hands slipped through his hair to cradle his head, and the other's mouth opened in mute invitation to deepen the kiss. His eyes closed as the other's sweet essence surrounded him--every cell, every nerve ending in his body focused on this exquisite mingling of tongues, breath, and juices. The kiss went on and on--growing steadily hotter, more urgent--till the sheer fire of it coursed through his veins and left his whole body shivering with life.
When at last the need for air drove them apart, he opened his eyes into sudden brightness and discovered a blue more precious and beautiful than the clearest summer sky.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi," the wizard murmured, smiling sleepily into the young man's dazed, luminous blue eyes. "I believe we met before, once... in a dream."
EPILOGUE
Obi-Wan stood on the front step of the royal palace as, before him, a pair of stablehands hitched four white horses to a spacious and well-built carriage. In the large courtyard to Obi-Wan's left, a group of gangly young students drilled combat stances under the tutelage of Swordmaster Windu. Obi-Wan smiled at one lad in particular; smaller than the other students and visibly struggling to keep hold of the heavy broadsword, the boy's face bore a proud determination to keep up with the others around him. Obi-Wan made a mental note to single the boy out with for praise and encouragement when he returned from his upcoming journey.
It had been nearly five years since Qui-Gon Jinn had awoken from his enchanted sleep... and in those years, Obi-Wan often felt his own life had taken on the qualities of a dream. How else could one explain Obi-Wan's sudden rise from a useless pariah to the respected mage who, at his Master's side, had turned back Coruscant's enemies and brought peace to a land that had known only war for a hundred long, bloody years?
More than that, the years had changed him from a desperately lonely and friendless boy to a man loved and honored by the whole kingdom... and loved most of all by the man who had wrought this transformation, his Master and bondmate, Qui-Gon Jinn.
A recent letter from the Eerin family had brought even more happiness into Obi-Wan's life. Bant's youngest sister had given birth to a blue-eyed baby girl and had chosen to honor the child with her aunt's name.
With all of Coruscant now understanding that a blue-eyed child was not a curse, but a blessing, little Bant would be spared the scorn that had been so much a part of Obi-Wan's youth. In years to come, Obi-Wan and his bondmate would teach the young girl how to use her Fate-given talents--as they were now teaching a handful of other blue-eyed children who had been brought to the palace to learn wizardry. Till then, Bant would have the strength of two powerful life blessings to guide her, life blessings he and Qui-Gon would deliver when they journeyed to Eerin Keep this very day.
Strong arms slid around Obi-Wan's waist and pulled him up against an even stronger chest. Obi-Wan nuzzled back against his bondmate's neck and smiled as Qui-Gon dropped a light kiss onto his temple.
"I'm sorry, love," Qui-Gon said softly. "Did I keep you waiting long?"
Obi-Wan's smile broadened as his bondmate's words unintentionally echoed the subject of his reverie. "Don't worry, my dearest wizard," he replied blissfully. "You were more than worth the wait."
(...and they lived happily ever after... :>)