AUTHOR: agentj
STATUS: complete
DATE: February 2005
CATEGORY: Challenge (Qui-Gon Romance Valentine's Day 2005), Jedi Philosophy
CHARACTERS: Qui-Gon Jinn, Tahl (minor)
TIMEFRAME: Pre-Saga: Jedi Apprentice era
CONTENT WARNING: none
SUMMARY: Qui-Gon contemplates love.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: The trip to Oceania is Qui-Gon's take on MasterNoi's "Another's Eyes," another response to the same challenge at theforce-dot-net. The song is "One of Your Smiles" by Dierdre Dubois. The six types of love is a lesson taught to me in a dream.
DISCLAIMER: I willingly and willfully use characters and situations copyrighted by Twentieth Century Fox and Lucasfilm Ltd. without permission, and without monetary gain. Additional characters and situations are copyright 2005 Lisa D. Jenkins.
Within his private chambers, Qui-Gon kneeled on the cold floor across an etched pattern of the regal Jedi guardian. He pushed aside the discomfort of remaining in a meditative position for long periods of time. He blocked out the ebb and flow of life around him, both the quietude of the fellow Jedi as they passed through the halls of the Temple as well as the hustle of the comings and goings of beings outside in the Coruscant traffic. Eyes closed, arms resting with palms upward, Qui-Gon's imposing frame extruded calm and composure.
If only he felt it.
A Jedi may not know love, fear or hate. Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden.
It seemed a simple directive, but in its simplicity, it was too restrictive. A Jedi knew many kinds of love. Qui-Gon focused his mind on the teachings of Kaja Waisari, the great Melaidonian philosopher from whom many Jedi philosophies had been formed. The ancient Jedi Bendu Master had broken love down to six types.
Love of self.
This was not the self-defeating love of pride, but the acceptance of self. Qui-Gon struggled with this every day. There once was a day the formidable Jedi rose from his bed chamber without a trace of self-doubt. He embraced each day ahead like an old friend. Then one day the friend he embraced pulled out its knife and stabbed him through the heart with it.
Qui-Gon remembered the day vividly. He and his Padawan Xanatos arrived on Talos, hoping to quell a brewing civil war. This was Xanatos' home world. Unable to remain impartial, Xanatos fell to the darkness when Qui-Gon pitted himself against Xanatos' own father. The shear horror that cut through Qui-Gon like shards of glass came as his beloved Padawan watched Qui-Gon deliver the blow. It severed their intricate Master-Padawan bond forever. Although he had told no one of his heart's desire, Qui-Gon had trusted his instincts, his very life, that this boy could have been the One as foretold in the Prophecy of Balance.
Never again.
Qui-Gon could never trust himself again. Other students slipped through his fingers. Wonderful, promising students passed through the Temple walls, and the Jedi Master saw only his own faults, never the promising students' strengths. Determinedly, Qui-Gon's eyes glazed over each student presented to him by the Council. Each student that came to him had high hopes to be Chosen, but he simply pointed out his own faults to them as if they were their own, and they shrank away, one by one.
Love of others.
This was not the amorous falsehood of seeking approval, but the acceptance of others as an integral part of one's life. This, Qui-Gon never lost. Forever burned in his soul was the lesson that accidents were always serendipitous turns of life led by the Force. As Kaja Waisari explained, the Force of Others was both from within and from without, from the body and from the spirit. Qui-Gon felt the energy of the Force flow within him, and spent many years in Jedi training watching the energy's influence on those from without. Every day, the great Jedi would begin with a prayer of gratitude that the Force had led him here on this path. Every day, a new gift opened before him.
Sometimes Qui-Gon found himself conflicted between the love of self and the love of others. Master Yoda approached him and pointed out the Initiates who poured their precious energy into every parry, every thrust, every blow on the sabre training pad. Yoda pointed out one in particular. He had far surpassed his pupils with sabre technique. His footwork was nothing short of textbook quality. But the boy's focus was never on the here and now. Always worried about the future was this boy, always determined to place his attention on what may be and not on what was.
Still, Yoda knew the boy's reckless spirit would call to Qui-Gon's soul. He placed the two on separate missions together, knowing the Force would be the catalyst between them.
As usual, the green gnome of a Jedi Master was always right.
Love of friends.
There was nothing more pure than a comrade by one's side, whether it be in battle against a common enemy or in times of joy when the heart was free to laugh and sing. This was the love Qui-Gon knew best, although it was the hardest for him to embrace. Some would say the Jedi was a difficult man, hard to befriend, while perfect strangers would say Qui-Gon had the most compassionate soul, the deepest friend fate had ever bestowed on them.
Qui-Gon frequently confused his love of others with love of friends. He found it easier to accept strangers into his heart than those with whom he had lived and worked side-by-side for many years. Yet, Qui-Gon chided himself, were not his life-long friends once strangers when he first met them?
As his still-young Padawan Obi-Wan was fond of remonstrating, Qui-Gon was forever taking on "pathetic life forms" under his wing, leaving a string of touched lives in his wake. Each one of them special. Each one of them a true friend. Yet, strangers, all.
Love of family.
For a Jedi, familiar ties were not those of blood, but those forged by the tests and trials of life. Although Qui-Gon had deep ties with friends, those ties drew tighter between those of his Jedi family. Like all Jedi, Qui-Gon was taken from his home at an early age. He had no memory of his parents, and had he never visited Hargithon as a young adult, he would never know its lush green landscape, its winding rivers, its people or its heritage. The Jedi Temple had been his home. The Jedi Council were his parents. The fellow Initiates and Padawans his brothers and sisters.
Strangely, Qui-Gon realized that he felt closer to Master Yoda as a beacon for guidance far more than his own Master, Count Dooku. Dooku had been strict, unrelenting. Qui-Gon had never gotten a sense of compassion from his master, yet his own heart loved the man dearly like a father. In the end, Dooku could never rein in Qui-Gon's gargantuan impulsive nature. Forever would the two men be at odds with one another, even if their core convictions remained the same.
Qui-Gon's thoughts touched upon the boy he knew as his son. It had been difficult to accept Obi-Wan after Xanatos. Obi-Wan followed the Jedi code in all its strictness. His whole being screamed the things Qui-Gon fought so hard against in the Council. Programmed from near-birth to be the perfect Jedi warrior, Obi-Wan had difficulty accepting life at its face value. Still, Qui-Gon couldn't help but embrace the boy. Like his namesake, Obi-Wan's heart was generous beyond compare, willing to follow what he felt was right, even if it was for the wrong reasons. Like he and his master Dooku, perhaps Obi-Wan was not all that different from his master deep within.
Romantic love.
Qui-Gon frowned as he returned to ponder the original precept. Romance, as a whole, was forbidden to a Jedi. Once, when the Jedi were called the Jedi Bendu, they had taken wives, husbands and given birth to their daughters and sons. Knowledge of the Force of Others was passed down generationally. But then the Sith Lord, Darth Acteon, hunter of Jedi Bendu, systematically destroyed bloodlines. Calling on the Dark Force of hate and anger to kill his father, his brother, even his wife and his own children, the once-Jedi Bendu Master could not separate his feelings from his family. Never again would the Jedi allow this to happen.
Yet, in an instant, Qui-Gon had fallen into the call of desire. His friend. His family. His Tahl.
Qui-Gon's regal frame shuddered as memories returned, unbidden.
After many months of grueling missions, the Council had granted Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan a respite. Eager to show the boy some of the more treasured planets he visited in his youth, Qui-Gon suggested Oceania. Obi-Wan's friend Bant, a Mon Calamari, desired to see a world filled with chains of islands surrounded by the bluest ocean. She had recently been Chosen as a Padawan to Qui-Gon's life-long friend, Master Tahl. They decided to go together.
Qui-Gon remembered it was morning, the Padawans exhaustedly sleeping after a day of swimming in the sun-warmed crystalline waters. He had gone to wake Tahl to watch the sunrise. After drawing her out into the dawning sky, Qui-Gon suddenly felt foolish. She had lost her eyesight years before on a mission, and despite the sightless gaze and deep white scar that crossed one eye, Qui-Gon was constantly forgetting Tahl's blindness—or forever trying to compensate for it.
Yet Tahl asked him to describe the colours to her. He found he could not give words to the beauty unfolding before him. Just as he began to describe the scene, the sun would rise higher, the hues within the strands of clouds changing. Still, she smiled at him and told him how beautiful it sounded.
Then she asked to "see" him again.
Dumbfounded, Qui-Gon found himself the recipient of Tahl's butterfly touches. Her slim fingers danced upon his face, pushing back his wind-strewn hair, tracing his eyebrows, following the crooked line of his frequently broken in his wild youth nose, tickling the edges of his beard. Afraid of where her touch was taking him, Qui-Gon stopped her from reaching his lips. He regarded her golden-green eyes, her honey-toned skin, her salt-and-pepper locks as the ocean breeze played it upon her face. She was his friend. She was his family. And although he had not fully realized it then, she was more.
On impulse, Qui-Gon found himself pressing his lips to hers. She responded without a word, seeming to accept it for what it was.
Curling up together in the growing light of day, Tahl had softly begun to sing.
For you were more like the wind
And all my life I will seek you
Deep in the core of my within
If I tried to see you now
You'd be dancing across the sky
And you'd be wearing your gypsy clothes
While you are wearing one of your smiles
She was right. He was smiling.
Love of the divine.
Qui-Gon breathed the presence of the Force in every moment, with every breath of his being, yet there were times when he shut himself away from the quiet and guiding energy that enveloped him. He shut himself off from ever being a Master again when he had lost Xanatos. Yet he had found Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon turned away from all of his knowledge, all that had been taught to him when he lost Tahl.
The wound was too fresh.
With a deep sigh, Qui-Gon's stalwart frame sagged, his head bent in sorrow at a life filled with so many losses. Yoda had asked him to do this, to contemplate the Jedi teachings of love in all its facets. But why? Didn't the ancient Jedi Master know it would certainly bring to light all the things that caused Qui-Gon pain, and nearly turned him to the Dark Side?
Of course, he did. That is why he suggested it.
So many times, Qui-Gon threw himself at life with all of his heart and soul. Time and again, life would twist its cruel dagger, and he would lose his faith. It was the Force that guided him on this journey. The stones in the riverbed were inevitable. One could not simply remove them; one had to traverse them, navigate them, learn from them.
The Force taught him, time and again, Qui-Gon was just a man, one of many. Yet the threads of lives he had touched trailed behind him, like the blazing of a comet's tail in the sky.
Qui-Gon the man couldn't help but love his family, his friends, his life. His essence of all he was was entwined with theirs. Like a Padawan braid, the strands touched and wove together in the tapestry of life.
Suddenly Qui-Gon realized the Force was the essence of love itself. It had given him life, it had given him not one, but two sons to nourish. It gave him a woman to cherish. It gave these things to Qui-Gon freely. Just as freely, Qui-Gon gave his heart to these things.
Opening his eyes, Qui-Gon's head lifted as he smiled and the weight in his heart began to dissipate. No longer would he be afraid to know love.