A/N: Wow! I haven't written a fanfic in years. And then I wake up this morning to this little gem in my head. I'm fairly sure this will be the longest fic I've ever undertaken, but I'm promising one upload a week!
Disclaimer Haiku: George Lucas is rich / and I am not, ergo I / do not own Star Wars.
A timid knock sounded on the door of Yoda's small apartment. Obi-Wan was standing outside in the dark hallway, sucking his thumb and clutching his little lantern like one off to battle. The cast light flickered and twitched on the high hallway walls as Obi-Wan shook. Such a vivid dream…
Yoda's door swished open to reveal the Jedi Master himself, dressed in a disheveled sleeping tunic. Obi-Wan popped his thumb out of his mouth and tried to stand straight, like he had been taught to stand in the presence of a Master. After appraising one another for a moment, Yoda motioned over his shoulder with his walking stick, "Follow me, you should."
The hobbling Jedi led the way through his dark, standard-issue quarters. When he reached the far wall, he palmed a small button that would be almost invisible to anyone more than one standard meter tall. A little door made its own swish and revealed an inner room.
Yoda looked thoughtfully at Obi-Wan. "Inside, you should come, youngling. Much to tell me, you do." The Jedi master went inside and sat upon a child-sized chair to pour some tea, freshly brewed. Obi-Wan stared at his slippers and bit his lip, but he did cross the threshold. He did not Want to tell Yoda his dream, but Crèche Master Tachi had told him to answer any questions Master Yoda asked.
Obi-Wan looked around while Yoda drew a tin of biscuits from a cupboard. The furniture in this little room was not like the child-sized furniture in the crèche. It wasn't colorful or childish in the least; rather, it looked like real, adult furniture, only smaller. Obi-Wan decided he liked the room and nestled into the soft folds of the armchair.
Once Yoda had handed the youngling his tea and biscuits, he closed his eyes and hummed. "Strange dreams, you have had, Obi-Wan. Strange dreams, I have had. Tell me your dreams, you should. Seek truth in our dreams, we should." When Obi-Wan remained silent, preferring instead to twist the folds of his tunic, Yoda spoke again.
"In my dreams, a padawan grown, you are. Full of beads, your braid is. With one master, you sometimes are. With another, you are at other times."
"That's in my dreams too!" the little youngling said, eyes wide. "And one of the masters is good. And the other one is, is..."
That's the trouble with four-year-olds, Yoda thought. Their words were so small, so insignificant compared with harsh realities like Sith and Dark Side. The youngling would not understand his own dreams for many years. But knowing the child in front of him was having the same, or at least similar dreams to his own made up his mind. He needed to see exactly what Obi-Wan was dreaming about.
"Sleep in my quarters tonight, you shall." Yoda said, banging his gimer stick on the ground. "Let you out of my sight, I will not. Make this deal with every youngling, I do not."
Obi-Wan's eyes grew as round as the third biscuit he was raising up to his lips. Every youngling was star-struck by the diminutive Jedi whose presence he was currently enjoying. Sleeping in Yoda's quarters held all the promise of a backstage music hall pass coupled with an extra playtime reward. Obi-Wan began to bounce a little in his seat before deciding that Jedi probably do not bounce. He sat on his hands to restrain himself, but Yoda had already noticed.
"If handle this, you cannot, make you sleep in the healer's wing, I shall." Yoda snapped, "Very important, it is, for you to sleep tonight." Though the child made an honest attempt to close his eyes and sleep, Yoda realized that the child wouldn't likely be able to in a new and unfamiliar environment. Without even a wave of his hand, he sent a light Force-sleep suggestion to wash over the boy.
Obi-Wan's eyes started to flutter closed with the suggestion, but only for an instant. He cried out against the pull, forcing his eyes as wide open as he could and sitting straight up in the armchair. "Please Master Yoda, I don't want to have the bad dreams again."
Yoda put a wrinkled hand over the boy's forehead, gently guiding his head to rest on the arm of the chair. "Face his fears, a Jedi must. But face them alone, he must not. Be with you in your dreams, I shall." With that, Yoda sent a Force-suggestion strong enough to knock out a herd of Bantha towards the youngling. When he was confident that the boy had truly fallen asleep, he put himself into a deep meditative trance and went into the deep waters of the Force.
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Obi-Wan was running fast. The ground beneath his feet was dark red in color, streaming in rivers that looked eerily like blood from the downpour of rain. He splashed through puddle after puddle, trying to put as much distance between him and…whatever he was running from. A voice was speaking to him in his mind.
"You don't have much time before they discover you, Padawan. Complete your task and get out before you're caught. I don't want to be held liable for your mistakes- again." The last word had a razor's edge to it, and the Obi-Wan that was safe in Yoda's quarters started to toss and turn.
The Obi-Wan in the dream, however, felt confident. "I won't let you down, Master. Just a little bit further." His lightsaber felt cool in his hand, ready to get to work.
The dream became fuzzy then as the Force recoiled, as if it were trying to buck the possibilities the dreams promised. But the dream reconfigured to show Dream Obi-Wan cutting down an entire council of elected officials. There were screams and shouts from the conference room, but the red blade sliced through the air until the last voice was silenced at last. Once Dream Obi-Wan had made sure they were all lifeless, he leapt through the open window and out into the rain, pounding the dark red mud in escape.
The Force shuddered again, this time succeeding in shaking off the nightmarish visions and leaving Obi-Wan in a wash of neutral senses from the other sleeping force-signatures in the Temple. From within his trance, Yoda frowned. The boy's dreams were far more vivid than his own, more vivid than any four-year-old had any right to be dreaming. No wonder he hadn't wanted to sleep. Yoda considered waking the boy since his fears had been confirmed, but just then a new dream began to take shape in Obi-Wan's mind.
This time, Obi-Wan was running at a break-neck pace, nearly flying over tall marshland beside a slow-moving river. The reeds swayed in the wind, pulling Obi-Wan this way and that since his head didn't reach even halfway up their tall stalks. A voice reached out to Obi-Wan's mind in this dream too, but a voice much steadier and calm than the last. "Remember your training, Padawan. Focus."
In the distance, Dream Obi-Wan could see a sloping platform rising into the sky directly in front of him. He grinned and pushed himself even further, letting the Force carry him to speeds unknown to mere humanoids. His padawan braid was slapping hard against the back of his neck, but he quickly released the annoyance into the Force as he came to the platform. Careening at full speed, he launched himself up the ramp and into the air.
"Master!" he called out through the bond, "I'm FLYING!"
Though in reality, Obi-Wan was falling, and fast. Despite the Master's continued instructions from across the bond, Obi-Wan landed in a belly-flop in the river. When he sputtered to the surface, the water in his eyes made his vision unfocused. All he could see was a tall, brown-cloaked figure staring at him from the riverbank, chuckling. "We still have some work to do, Obi-Wan."
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The Obi-Wan that was still curled into Yoda's armchair relaxed as the remnants of his second vision faded away and he passed into the dreamless stage of sleep.
Yoda, similarly, pulled himself out of his trance and sighed. His own dreams had been focused on the boy's very distant future, one both shrouded in shadows and yet bursting with Light. He couldn't understand how either of the boy's potential futures, if the dreams could be called that, could lead to the presence of both Light and Dark in his life. It didn't add up.
In any case, there was no question about the boy's preference for the Unifying Force. Dreams like these just didn't come to those who were more comfortable in the Living Force. And that was exactly what worried Yoda. More and more of the Unifying Jedi had been slipping away recently, one by one turning Dark as if by some plague. Watching the youngling sleeping in his armchair, he made a vow. This one, he promised, they would not have.
A/N: There you go! What do you think of this start? Lather on the harsh criticism if you've got it, just don't mindlessly hate. Hate leads to suffering and all that. ;)