The Force, by its very definition, was immaterial and not at all susceptible to the whims and fancies of the Universe. Only through those that used and manipulated it did the Force take shape, though no one group could truly claim to have even the slightest degree of complete understanding of the ethereal field. Such concepts as 'Light' and 'Dark' were just the projections that were cast upon it to better reflect the wielders intentions and heart.
But, in no way, could it be said that the Force was stationary, stagnant. It was a constantly shifting, expanding and contracting element of life, and no two points of it were the same. Time held no sway over it, and neither did dimension. What one perceived as the present could consequently be the past or a distant future for others. A certainty here was only a possibility elsewhere.
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Sitting on the edge of his sleep palette with the maroon wash of the planets two setting suns, he's lost in thought as he gazes at his thin and somewhat wrinkled hands. How had he grown old so fast? The years had seemed to just bleed into each other until nearly two decades had passed in this lonely exile. How had he seemed to age far faster than he should have when he was only a bit over standard middle-aged?
Mortality rarely concerned Obi-Wan Kenobi, being that he was regularly in touch with the living force and often acted as its vassal, but there was an emptiness in slowly dying in a hovel at the edge of the Jundland Wastes; he partially blamed it on being spoiled by the excitement and dangers of war.
He knew that what he was doing, had been doing this whole time, was imperative to the safety of the galaxy as a whole, yet he still yearned for activity, for (in risk of sounding clichéd) adventure; age had yet to beat that carryover from his days as a padawan learner from him. The son and daughter of Anakin Skywalker were, more or less, the only remnants of an old life that had now been almost entirely ground under the ruthless and unswayable machine that was the Galactic Empire. Them, two lightsabers and a heart full of pain.
If asked by just about anyone, Obi-Wan would tell them that he was always accompanied by the Force as his companion and never wanted for much. In reality, under the guises of a serene Jedi Master or the oft mischievous hermit, he was alone with his guilt and pain every waking second, struggling not to let the weight of the past crush him into nothing.
He could go days, weeks even, without recalling the names or faces of all those he lost, busying himself with life on the unconquered frontier of Tatooine. Inevitably, he will remember every single one of them and the grip upon his heart will strengthen until he is nearly doubled over from the agony; feeling the loss of the many friends and loved ones who were struck down in far too short a period and far too early.
He was practically alone in this galaxy; where Jedi were myths and the Dark Side reigned supreme over all. He had no one to talk to, to debate with, to be with. Hermitage was not a life meant for one so rambunctious as he had been, and still partly was. He dearly missed his comrades of the order, of the Republic, those that he had known for years, only to see them snatched away by tragedy.
The greatest pain of all, the one that had torn his armor away from him and left him with little in the way of defense, was that of losing Anakin. The bright, cheerful boy he had helped raise, the broody but loyal teenager he had taught, the solemn and courageous man he had embraced as a brother was dead and gone, or as good as. His fall to the Dark Side hadn't been abrupt, or even totally unseen as Obi-Wan had hoped it to be. With only a little hindsight, it was now painfully easy to see Sideous' ministrations from the very beginning, digging his claws into the prospective Chosen One and needling away at his foundations until they collapsed and left him susceptible to the Sith Lord's cunning shceming.
With hindsight came so many impossible questions: If I had been there more, would he have sought me rather than Sideous? If I had listened to him, if I had actually taken his insecurities into measure, could I have seen where he was going in time? If I had learned about Padmè earlier, could I have convinced the Council to overlook it and ensure their safety? He held none of the answers, and knew that there was no way he could change the past with nothing but regrets and wishes, but he never was able to shake the haunting scenarios that could or should have been from his dreams, nor of the faces of those they would have saved.
An old man, waiting to die alone with his regrets and seeking some vindication for past mistakes. He was truly living the life.
He wanted to sigh, to show some outward sign that he was still alive, but there was no point; there was no one there to see, and he had long ago stopped trusting himself on these matters. For all he knew, he could actually have died in his sleep and was still carrying on as an apparition of the Force, anchored to this mortal plane with the weight of dread hanging about his neck.
He could stay like this all night, with his own demons tearing into him and offering no respite. He has done so more times than he is willing to count, and just one more would be a mere drop in the bucket. But…
He perks his head up, slightly, as if hearing a far away voice, and looks off into the distance, ignoring the smooth stone walls that separate him and the outside. What he just felt, it was like the slightest tremor in the Force, no more than a vibration that was only felt as an echo of the real thing. It could be a disturbance, but it could also be the Force itself, shifting over some unseen change that he would likely never learn of.
But what this shift meant for everything else was uncertain, and would remain uncertain for the near future until enough had transpired that he could form a hypothesis, and maybe track its progress. It was at least something for him to occupy himself with. In a desert of sand and heat, there was little for a faded warrior to wile away the hours with.
Obi-Wan Kenobi finally laid down on his bed, quieting his mind to try and achieve slumber, but some phantom doubt, the emerged worldliness of age, told him that he would not rest easily, nor would he for some time to come.
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It started, and ended, with those dreaded and hated howls; the bellows never meant to leave a living beings lungs. The Sand People were on the hunt.
Luke had been lounging in his room, relaxing after a day full of tedious and exhaustive chores to keep the vaporators running and the homestead clean. But at the not nearly far enough call of the Tuskens, he was already scrambling for the door before he was even thinking, acting on instinct and practice.
Owen had been doing last rounds out in the courtyard and was already climbing the stairs to the surface at a reckless speed, gangly blaster rifle clutched in browned and calloused hands. Luke retrieved his own rifle from where it was kept at the ready in the garage and sped to join his uncle at the defenses.
What came next was all just a blur to the young man when he tried to look back on it: In the twilight gloom, the silhouettes of the raiders dotted the land not even half a klick away, already charging with gaderffii sticks held aloft and more war bugles being sounded from under their nightmarish wrappings. Owen didn't hesitate to open fire, and neither did Luke, but neither were much of a marksman and nearly all of the red blasts missed their targets entirely. Luke managed to wing one, though it continued on a second later, and Owen got on in the leg, halting its charge, but then the rest of the party was upon them.
Luke couldn't count how many there were, the light having nearly been extinguished entirely by that point, but he threw out a quick estimate that there were at least ten, not counting the one now crippled. In that world of darkness, he lashed out wildly, catching his nearest attacker across the face with the butt of his rifle and staggering the robed figure. Any attempt to bring the unwieldy rifle about to finish off the raider was thwarted by another of the nomadic Tusken as it brought its gaderffii down, hard, onto the barrel of the rifle and knocked it clear out of Luke's grasp.
Stumbling backwards, he ducked under the next swing, but the one after that caught him in the shoulder and he reeled from the pain. A shot went off nearby. None of the raiders in front of him dropped.
A third charged bodily into him and tackled him to the ground-and Luke's luck changed just like that. For while the Sand People were notorious scrappers and never held back, Luke was a physically active man at the beginning of his prime and was fighting for his life: the raider tried to bash his head in with its staff, but the blonde grabbed the blunt end of the weapon and diverted it away from his skull, coming back with a punch with his opposite hand that sent the raider rolling off of him and losing its hold on the gaderffii.
Taking up the glorified club, Luke swung it in a down stroke that connected with a reverberating crack against the downed raider's skull, possibly killing it but definitely taking it out of the fight.
He spun about as another Tuskan rushed him, side stepping the overhead swing and ramming the end of his own staff into the pillager's abdomen. He never even realized how naturally he fought with a melee intended weapon rather than a blaster, despite having so little experience with the former.
A desperate roar tore itself from his throat as he hammered his stolen gaderffi into the neck of another raider, suffering a gash from the flanged section of another fighting stick as it descended from his peripheral vision and scored a hit along his left arm. The sting was momentary, quickly crammed beneath the adrenaline that was pumping into his veins like boiling water on ice. He was surrounded by enemies, and his baser instincts were now almost entirely at the helm, guiding him in the struggle for survival.
He doesn't even see the gaderffii that smacks him upside the jaw, toppling him like a mannequin. His ears were ringing and he could barely see anything beyond the dark splotches that swam in his vision. He did, however, feel the merciless blows that rained down on his prone form, forcing him to curl in on himself to try and reduce the damage.
Another shout, this one of alarm came from somewhere on his right. He had lost track of direction quickly in the fight, but he was sure that it was from Uncle Owen. Sure enough, the aging moisture farmer put words into his next exclamation. "Luke! Get outta there!"
Luke tried, rolling like a barrel away from his attacker, but the next thing he knew, a wrapped foot had smashed down on his head and pinned him to the sand. Flailing about, he couldn't find his gaderffii within reach, so instead he groped at the leg that was grinding his face into the course desert ground. His fingers happened upon a knife, merely a large chip of sharpened rock that the raider kept on hand, and he frantically drew it and plunged it into the leg.
A howl of pain, not unlike the earlier war shout, washed over him and the pressure bearing down on him vanished, leaving free to scramble to his feet. Another gaderffii smashed into his back, but he rolled with it and leapt at the offending raider, throwing a flurry of desperation fueled punches that drove the nomad back several steps before Luke wrenched the slightly longer gaderffii from its hands and used the spike on the end to cleave through its shoulder.
Ignoring the creatures agonized screeching, Luke pulled the weapon back and slammed it lengthwise across its face, creating a metallic click as it grazed the metal mouth piece of the Tusken's wrappings. One last, heavy-handed swing to the skull downed it, and Luke only just had time to get a better grip on his third weapon before he was beset upon by two at once, one of them sporting a glinting piece of stone from its leg.
Raising his staff to intercept the strike of one of them, the young farm boy left himself open to a swipe from the other than staggered him and nearly cost him his footing. He jumped away from a follow up, one aimed to break his hand or fingers, and swung one handed at the nearest attacker, needing the reach. He missed it by a good span of inches, but it had the effect of forcing the raider to dodge back to avoid the blow.
Luke backpedaled to give himself some more arm room, knocking into a third Tusken that wheeled about to ram him in the face, but was beaten to the punch as Luke sliced the small spike up across the pillagers chest, carving through bandages and puckered, nearly black skin beneath. A shove sent the injured Tuskan stumbling away as it groped at its oozing wound.
His two original aggressors were already attacking him again. He managed to think this time and dodged one while blocking the other in the same movement. Grabbing hold of the offending gaderffii, he jerked it towards him, disrupting the raider's balance and forcing it to take a step forwards. Releasing his hold, he instead reached forward and sharply tugged at the dirty brown rapping's that covered the raider's face. The traditional coverings were far too tight to remove, but he did succeed in knocking the ocular pieces askew and effectively blinded the Tuskan until it could right the problem.
A lance a fire sprang up from his side, this time remaining ahead of the adrenaline. The other raider had stabbed at him with the spike of his staff, thankfully missing somewhat so that the cut only glanced off of his rips but left a sizeable gash in his skin. Grasping at the laceration, Luke retaliates with a jerky kick, barely even connecting at all. His wounds are starting to get to him, and he might have a concussion on top of everything else.
His arm is slowing, but he still manages to jab his gaderffii towards his enemy with enough force that the Tuskan is shunted back a step, repositioning its own club to strike him in the temple or jaw. Luke, though dazed, sees his opportunity and leans back, just out of the staffs range, and narrowly avoids the blow. He capitalizes on this by running fully into the raider, knocking it to the ground with him straddling its chest.
The blonde slams the shaft of his gadeffii down across the craven's throat, pushing down with his body weight and unconsciously loosing a hissing sound as he struggles against the thrashing raider, spit and blood spurting out from between his clenched teeth. It doesn't take long to crush the Tuskan's windpipe beneath the hot metal, but it would take a deal longer for it to finally die, time Luke doesn't have.
A pair of arms grabbed him under the shoulders and threw him off of the asphyxiating raider. Rolling a pace away, Luke manages to get to his feet before the staff cracks against his off-hand, succeeding in breaking something where the others had failed. Wailing, Luke only held onto the crude cudgel through dogged determination, glaring heatedly at the enshrouded native creature.
Holding his damaged hand close to his still bleeding side, Luke throws several strikes of his own, but they are lacking in strength and are easily dodged or blocked. He knows that he is doomed if he doesn't finish the fight soon, so he takes a reckless approach and spins around, just one rotation, and flings the gaderffii as hard as he can at the raider.
It flinches away, instinctively raising its hands to shield its face. The staff only knocks against its chest like a minor punch, but Luke has already seized his chance and steps in with a significantly stronger right hook that glances off of the pillager's jaw, but still knocks it down from the unexpected force. Snatching his gaderffii back up, Luke smashes it down on the cloaked terror, again and again and again, until it stops moving altogether.
Winded, the young man finally takes stock of his surroundings. The sands are littered with the shadowy bodies of the Sand People, the nighttime sky giving them a ghoulish appearance. Some are still alive, but either too stunned or wounded to leave right then.
Looking hazily back towards where the homestead was nestled in the cooler layers of the ground, he spotted a lone figure standing at the lip of the sizeable indent, looking down into it.
"Un-" Luke breaks off as a throb of pain forces him to clamp his jaw shut and clutch at the jagged cut in his side with his uninjured hand. It eventually subsides, but now he is even shorter of breath. "Uncle Owen…" He staggers towards the figure, feet shuffling in the sand. Slowly, the head of the only other remaining fighter turns towards him, and Luke catches a glint of reflected light off of sand polished metal before the Tuskan jumps down into his home.
Panic explodes inside of him, and he lurches after the assailant. His feet catch on something and he crashes headlong into the ground. Looking back, Luke feels bile rise up in his mouth to see that he tripped over the arm of his Uncle, throat split open of as if by a beast; blood pooling down his front as glassy, blank eyes stare in frozen shock somewhere over Luke's shoulder.
A scream snaps him from his horror, and, with an even greater sense of dread, he realizes that the last Tuskan has found Aunt Beru. He tries to rise to his feet once more, but his injuries finally take their toll and he collapses back down, huffing breaths displacing the sand by his mouth in small clouds. Consciousness leaves him, and he's left to drift in darkness…
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Obi-Wan stood up from where he had been kneeling by the fresh graves. The two additions to the four already there made for a grim scene that conveyed just how much death plagued this family. It struck him then that he stood just a few feet away from where Anakin's mother lay, the woman he had never met in person but had heard plenty of.
Biggs Darklighter stood nervously behind him, twisting his hands anxiously as he waited for the hermit to speak up. Obi-Wan had found him there when he arrived, going through the ransacked house and trying to restore some semblance of order to the sad wreck that had been the Lars' homestead. Naturally, he had been spooked by the appearance of the older man, but Kenobi had not been in any mood to prolong his mystique and had grilled the normally excitable man on just what had happened.
He had, stuttering out of nerves, retold the account that Luke had told him when he had visited him at Doctor Tebb's. He didn't have all of the details, with the Skywalker being agonizingly tight lipped and shell shocked, but he could fill in some of the spaces with the evidence that he and the other neighbors had found upon discovering the raid the day after.
That had been several days ago now, the tang of blood already lost in the sands and echoes of time. Obi-Wan hadn't immediately noticed anything wrong, being too far to hear of an attack and unable to differentiate the deaths of the Lars' with the other countless deaths and births that were going on all around him. When he had noticed something off, he had set out immediately despite it being still dark out, arriving a few hours after dawn.
"Mr. Darklighter, would you be so kind as to give this old man a ride over to the clinic? I believe that time is of the essence right now."
Biggs solemnly nodded, not really knowing a reason to deny his elder. He had heard a few stories of 'Old Ben Kenobi' saving people who had wondered out into the wastes, not the least of whom was Luke just a few months back.
They left the depressing shell of a home behind and boarded Biggs' three seat speeder, zooming across the desert with the lonely wail of the hover engines the only sound between them. Obi-Wan looked out across the barren landscape that he had called home for nineteen years, not feeling any attachment to the rocks and sand. If anything, he felt more uncomfortable in the stifling heat than ever before, something that he attributed to the dreary shadow that had seemingly fallen over his life lately.
What was he going to do, now that the boy's last relatives were gone? He couldn't harbor him himself, since that had been exactly what they had meant to avoid when splitting up the twins. Being around another Force sensitive, let alone a Jedi Master, would bolster his connection the Force and make him easier for the Empire and Vader to discover.
His agitated thought process was interrupted as the speeder decelerated and they stopped in front of a larger homestead than what they had just left, in actuality two separate buildings that had been joined in the intervening years due to a necessity for space. A simple sign was hung above both doorways declaring this "Lebb's Clinic", with the L hastily made into a T with black ink, the newer coat in stark contrast to the faded print around it.
Tebb himself, a genial if world-weary human male, was standing out front, leaning against the hard stone of the wall and sipping at a canteen. Spotting them, he waved them over without leaving the ample pool of shade he had camped in. Upon recognizing both of his visitors, a slight smile lit up on his creased cheeks.
"Well, I'll be damned; if it isn't Ben! I haven't seen you in a wamprat's age, you old bantha."
Obi-Wan cordially shook the offered hand, glad to see that he was remembered in a positive light. He hadn't been around these parts since he had escorted the survivors of an imperial patrol away from where most of them had unfortunately fallen prey to a veritable mind field of young sarlaacs. Even though the stormptroopers had insisted otherwise, the Jedi wasn't just going to leave them stranded out in the middle of literally nowhere with no way for them to contact help, with their communications specialist being one of the first victims.
"Indeed Tebb, it is good to see you as well. We are here to inquire of the young Skywalker."
The smile dropped from Tebb's face quickly, replaced by a duel frown and grimace. He offered out the canteen, universal language for 'you won't like the news'. It was only water, but that was still a precious commodity on this dustball.
"Well, comparatively, Luke's injuries were rather superficial; mostly just trauma along the arms and chest. The lacerations were easily cleaned and closed, helped along by a shot of bacta, as well as the fractured bones. What had me worried was whether or not he had suffered any cranial damage that could lead to brain damage. See, the kid barely said a word the whole time, and I get that his aunt and uncle were just killed, but he was totally stone still and silent; unnerved me, he did. But when I tried to do a scan, the screen of my console blew a fuse and nigh exploded, so I couldn't get the final results."
Obi-Wan nodded along with the words being spoken, but he was already disregarding them. The computer hadn't blown a fuse: Luke had been unconsciously lashing out with the Force and had caused the damage. If his emotional state was in such turmoil, then there really was no other choice but to get him off planet and into another, more peaceful environment. Perhaps it was time to contact senator Organa and arrange for transport.
"Could we see the boy; it might do him good to have some familiar faces around."
Tebb's immediate lack of response got Obi-Wan's attention. The weather worn man was averting his eyes, almost guiltily it seemed.
"Hey, what's the matter? Can't we see Luke?" Biggs spoke up, catching the shift in attitude admirably.
"Well that's just it: Luke left last evening." At the two looks of incredulity and confusion he was getting, he grimaced again as he took another drink from the water, his throat having suddenly gone dry. "This is only a clinic, not a proper med-station, if a patient can walk and remain conscious then I have no real right to keep 'em here until they're fully healed up."
"But where could the boy have gone? We just came from his home and there was no trace of him on the way over."
"Well of course you didn't spot him; he didn't even go in that direction. He took the transport into Mos Eisely. Told me that he was going to sell the deed for the homestead and leave the planet."
Obi-Wan felt the grip of guilt be joined by the cold claws of panic in his chest, taking root at his center and promising not to let go any time soon.
"Did he, by chance, say where it was that he meant to depart to?" He managed to keep the edge from his voice, if only just.
"Yeah, actually: said that he was goin' to the nearest Imperial installation and signin' up for the academy."
Obi-Wan knew then that he was cursed to forever fail his loved ones.