Some time ago I was reading some anonymous discussion about how various lines from "The Old Astronomer" had become (over?)popular fic titles, but that the poem's first line had been woefully underused, and took that as a challenge. Finally got around to writing this before new canon comes out to potentially contradict it.
A missing scene from my headcanon in "We'll Wake And Open Up Our Eyes," but hopefully can stand alone.
Lor is alone when Luke comes by, reading–of all things–a heavy, analog book. He had sworn off the collecting of such things when he'd settled on Ruwa, but old friends, knowing his weakness for knickknacks from across the galaxy, couldn't resist giving him gifts celebrating one anniversary after the next. Books are agreeable companions, and so much more usable than clunky holochess boards. With a book, you almost never have to worry that you're embarrassing someone.
Except, apparently, when you're too engrossed in the geology of ancient Jedha to notice a visitor's arrival. Lor leaps up and offers "Fizz?"
"Tea will be fine," Luke smiles.
"You'll have to be more specific than that," Lor says, walking to the kitchen, "Cosshu only insists on stocking a dozen sorts."
"Whatever you're partial to," Luke suggests, then thinks better of it and amends "or whatever won't be missed."
Lor starts the kettle and returns. "Thank you for coming."
"It's my pleasure," Luke claims, but Lor knows better. Getting him to stop by increasingly requires advance notice, and even then Luke only swings by on his erratic schedule. Not that Lor complains; the resurgence of the new Jedi academy is a marvel he'd scarcely have believed were it not for excellent authority.
"What brings you out this way anyway? If I may ask."
Luke raises his eyebrows. "Family business."
Lor can't help but break into a smile. "Give my best to her highness, then."
"She's a senator, and you can call her yourself, it'd do her some good."
Lor lets the first half of the sentence roll off him–old instincts die hard–but silently notes the second. It offends his sensibilities to think of just calling up a princess and asking about her well-being, but sensibilities are just a polite word for prejudices, and Alderaan's habits hold so little sway.
"Didn't say whose family," Luke remarks.
"Don't tell me you finally convinced Yunri to join that school of yours."
"Water'll flow uphill before anyone convinces that woman to go where she's not interested," Luke notes.
"Water flows uphill frequently," Lor points out, "the pipe system of Miletin–"
The kettle boils, and he hurries to prepare the tea, a black type that he enjoys. Luke sips it slowly once he has his cup, but doesn't seem to mind the strong taste.
"So," says Luke, "how goes it?"
"Slowly," says Lor, noting the change of topic but not pushing it. "Cosshu insists on continuing to work. I find physics less enlightening."
"Well," Luke has the decency to blush, "my...experiments may have contributed to the instability of this planet."
"Quite. I suppose...we have always been alone, you and I? When we've met before?"
"What?" Luke looks truly confused. "Cosshu's been around, and Leia. And Eith and Yunri once, I think, and–"
"I don't mean as regards humans," Lor interrupts, "or little droids, for that matter. I mean, I presume I'm not interesting enough for any of your–companions–to eavesdrop on."
"My...oh. No, no ghosts," said Luke. "Try not to take offense. They set their own schedules, such as it is."
Lor shakes his head. "I knew Bail Organa, back when we were–well, much younger than I am now. He spoke to me of a Jedi he knew, in wartime, and I ignored him, believing if we just shared Alderaan's legacy of peace, that might be enough. What I'd give to hear him reminisce one more time."
"It's no shame to change as you grow."
"Don't lecture me about growing up, young man," Lor teases.
Luke smiles and drinks more tea. "I only knew Obi-Wan for a few days, really. I knew Ben Kenobi for two lifetimes; my childhood and his afterlife."
"Two and counting," Lor notes. "Strange, to be on a nickname basis with a hidden Jedi master?"
"Only you would think it strange, and that's because you still treat Leia with a formality she's never asked for."
Lor silently concedes the point.
"Ben, the hermit, he was just a crazy old man. I supposed other children's families warned them away from him too, the way you might caution a child about a sandstorm or wild animals, or bantha droppings on the trail. Forces of nature, given human form. Later I learned the truth."
Lor tries to imagine the fear–what if a strange off-worlder carried weapons and hidden powers and a secret that could shake his own child's life? wouldn't he do anything to keep her safe?–but falls short. He has spent so many years being a strange off-worlder that Kenobi captivates him now, even as an unseen ghost.
"Then when I heard him speak to me, at first, I wasn't really processing what was going on. I was mostly fighting for my life at the time–against the Death Star, on some rebel missions. It was all I could do to keep alert, hear what needed to be understood, never mind where it came from."
"You don't need to share this," Lor says, even though now that Luke has begun he desperately craves the story.
Luke regards him quizzically and goes on. Perhaps it is the sheer oddity of his surroundings that calms him. Lor is no Force-sensitive himself, nor an influential politician, nor a voice in the media. Anyone he repeats this to will have reasons for wonder as enigmatic as his own.
"When I wanted him to show up, with answers, he wasn't always there. And even less often helpful," says Luke. "I don't think he lacked for power; I figure the Force just guided him to when he needed to appear most. And when I needed to figure things out on my own."
"That sounds like a comfort."
"It wasn't very comforting at the time."
Lor nods.
"These ghosts, they don't always look the same way. Sometimes it's only a voice, sometimes he looks like when I knew him, sometimes he appears as a young apprentice. I always recognize him, though, there's a–shine. A fold in the light. It's the same for all of them."
"Exactly how many ghosts do you keep counsel with?" Lor asks, but Luke contorts his face as if counting and he adds "Ah, never mind."
"Usually none. Sometimes there will be many at once, though whether they want to give advice or take it depends."
"Ghosts seeking the advice of the living! I suppose that's an inspiration." At Luke's confused look, Lor adds, "That even they don't have everything figured out yet; you still have something to add."
"I don't have much of a choice," Luke explains. "I'm going to have to do things a new way, not just because these new students aren't all interested in the lives and vows of the old Jedi, but because there was so much lost. For everything they teach me, there are many more strands we have to reforge for ourselves. Me, the students, what knowledge others have gathered. Force-sensitive and otherwise," he acknowledges.
"Much was lost," Lor says, "but not forever."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't invite you here only to hear the saga of Master Kenobi–though now that I've been entrusted with some, please do continue," says Lor. When the day comes, sooner or later, that he becomes one with the Force, he will greet it without fear, but that's no excuse for greeting it without wisdom. Some acquaintanceship with these "folds in the light" would be an honor. "I have something that might be useful to you. The students. Whoever."
Luke instinctively glances up at the bookshelves. "If you're trying to pawn off Five Hundred Twelve Marvels of "Modern" Alderaanian Architecture, we have an updated digital edition."
"Would you believe I have some acquaintanceship with the capacities of digital technology?" Lor rhetorically asks, walking over to his console.
"I'll believe your daughter programs droids for you," Luke mutters under his breath while Lor pretends to have gone slightly deaf in his advancing years, retrieving a thick data wedge.
"Here," he says, "next time you get away, maybe in a decade or two."
Luke ignores the jibe. "A hologram?"
"A map," Lor explains, "supposedly tracing the location of the original Jedi temple."
It's a sign of Luke's faith that he ignores the "supposedly" in favor of "Original?"
"All traditions have some point of origin," says Lor. "The Jedi are, while surely a great and noble strand–" he drops his eyes before Luke, "only one of the many sorts of Force-users that have inhabited the galaxy. It is said by some of...us, who seek to know the Force while apprehending it not as you do, that they too once had a small and ancient beginnings."
It is the first time he has claimed some kinship with the other devotees, even to himself. If he still had time to roam, no family to joyously remain with, Alderaan to represent, he can imagine all too well angling to be sent to Jakku and the Church of the Force. But instead what he knows of them is patched over distant hyperspace transmissions, almost as inaccessible as the buried dust of Jedha City.
Devotees and peacemakers, all given unto fire, he reflects. Next to that, is it so strange that he dreams of consorting with ghosts, recognizing them at his first glance and their perhaps second or third or numberless?
"This is a spectacular gift," Luke says. "I assume you have copies?"
"For preservation," says Lor, "deeply encrypted. Don't you try and tempt me into any more travel."
Luke takes it and turns it over, glancing at it as if to catch light through its translucencies. "When Obi-Wan and I went voyaging, we–"
Lor hangs on his every word, but then Luke glances up at him as if he's noticed him for the first time. "Well," Luke finishes, "things aren't always what you set out to find by the time you get there."
"Save the truisms," says Lor, "that's my job."
"But I'm a Jedi pedagogue now. What is there for me to do if not quip inscrutably?"
"If those Force ghosts are half as fascinating as the legends of Kenobi would have me believe, they should be able to occupy your students for plenty of time. You can scout out that temple on your own."
"The legends of Kenobi," Luke says. "Ben was less, and more, than that."
"I would apologize for bringing up a bitter loss, but not when he's not lost to you at all."
"Nor to any of us, in the end," says Luke, finishing his tea, and Lor gives a soft smile. "Thank you again for this map. I don't know if or when I'll be able to seek it out, but it's a relieving change of pace to remember there's more to learn."
"I don't mean to rush you."
"I can't stay long, I'm afraid." Luke stands. "Picking up a Force-sensitive student to bring to the school."
"Wonderful!" says Lor. "Then may the Force be with you both."
"Well," says Luke, "if she's anything like her grandfather, she won't lack for questions."
It's not until he's much deeper into his book that Lor realizes he's not sure who Luke meant.