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Waiting For A Chance That Never Comes
The first time Yoda holds baby Obi-Wan Kenobi, he sees a man kneeling by indistinct shadows turning to look at him with grey eyes full of pain, almost whispering. "Who could have done this?"
It is only a moment; Yoda blinks, and he is back in the crèche, visiting their newest arrival. The crèche master frowns at him, having caught the slight lapse in attention to the present, and asks if he is okay. Yoda smiles as the youngling catches one of the digits on the Jedi Master's hand and attempts to stuff it into his mouth, and he assures her that it was only a glimpse into the future. She asks if he wants to share, having realised that when Yoda has a vision of a youngling, it is indicative of the type of person they will grow to be.
His smile fades, and Obi-Wan stops gurgling and blinks up at him in puzzlement, sensitive to the mood of those around him, squeezing the captured digit as though he is reassuring Yoda. It should be a ridiculous thought, given how young the baby is, but Yoda has learned not to underestimate young ones in their ability to understand and read the Force, so he wraps the rest of his hand around that tiny fist and squeezes back.
"Grief," is the only answer he gives her.
He visits the child occasionally in his first few years of life. Meditation brought no more answers to him, the Force only swirling around him giving of the impression of sadness whenever he attempted to glimpse the child's future. Young Obi-Wan is growing up a normal Jedi youngling, lagging slightly behind his age mates in regards to realising his potential, yet there is something in him that Yoda cannot quite identify. He is still a child – and one, Yoda ruefully notes, who has something of a temper – but in the quiet moments, between the laughter of the young ones, the boy is solemn, thoughtful.
Obi-Wan is five years old when the Force grants the Jedi Grandmaster another vision of him: a young man, face tight and solemn under a drawn up hood, standing with his face lit by the flames that Yoda can see, but only blurrily, like the shapes Obi-Wan knelt by in his previous vision of him. It is enough to know from the shape that it is likely a funeral pyre, and there is a whisper that encourages the thought, and then Mace's voice comes through, low and clear and worried. "But which one was destroyed? The Master or the Apprentice?"
He blinks again, and is back in the empty room, the class having just finished and initiates having left.
Destroyed. The use of the word indicates the destruction of something already dead. Used among Jedi, as a method of expressing the death of a Dark-sider.
The Master or the Apprentice. Something about those words niggles at his memory, but he cannot place it, and again the Force provides no answers. Only a feeling of sorrow; deeper this time.
More clues as the young one's future appear in time, starting after the loss of Padawan Xanatos to the Dark side. Glimpses, barely snapshots where a young Obi-Wan, growing into the young man he saw by a funeral pyre, with a braid that was absent in that particular image, standing in the shadow of Qui-Gon. And the solitary Master Jinn smiling, something he has almost forgone after what happened with his Padawan.
Still, no more clues about whose pyre it was or why Mace was so concerned appear, and neither does he receive any more visions set so far in the future. The future is always in motion, and when Yoda thinks about it, he hopes that the future he saw for this child so bright in the Force that was so full of pain has changed. The future is always in motion, after all. He has had plenty of visions that have not come to pass; more, in fact, than he has seen realise themselves. It was possible that it was only a warning from the Force, a nudge to pay attention to the child.
The visions continue to retreat backwards in time after that, coming more frequently, and the Force conveys a sense of urgency – Obi-Wan Kenobi must be a Jedi, needs to be apprenticed to Qui-Gon Jinn. So he works towards that end, trusting the Force will reveal its purpose in doing so in time, and he steps in when Master Jinn refuses to listen, stubbornly lost in his own pain. The other Master's do not understand why he is so insistent, why he assigns Jinn to Bandomeer when Obi-Wan is sent there. They tell him that he cannot force Jinn to take another Padawan, that there is nothing particularly special about the young boy with a too-quick temper.
He knows better. The Force tells him better, tells him that Obi-Wan Kenobi is vital in helping Jinn heal from a wound he will not let go and is slowly letting fester into something uglier, more dangerous than mere grief. It whispers to him to pay attention to Obi-Wan Kenobi, that the boy with a too-quick temper who he saw in a future full of pain is somehow instrumental, essential. And because he pays such close attention to Obi-Wan, he sees how as time passes, the unremarkable baby grows into a rather average initiate, grows into a Padawan hopeful with hidden talent that shows through in his saber training and his interactions with his friends. And when he notices this, the Force whispers that this is only a glimpse of the Jedi he could be.
His colleagues share mildly astounded glances when they hear that Jinn took Obi-Wan Kenobi as his Padawan after all.
The visions extend into the future again. It is almost disconcerting, having the Force use so much of his attention to focus on one individual, but he trusts it and besides, he has grown to be fond of young Obi-Wan. The talent Yoda saw peeps out on missions, subtle but undeniably there, showing a core of durasteel and an ability to forgive that most would not have realised – indeed, did not realise – existed in the initiate with the too-quick temper. More and more, he sees what potential the Force has always known was in Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He sees the young man, braid-less as he stands before the funeral pyre with a solemn face, and Yoda now knows him well enough that he can see the pain the young one is keeping within on his face. He sees the pyre in more detail; though he still cannot make out who is on it, he knows that it is a large humanoid, and hopes for the sake of the young one that the Force will not call Master Jinn home so soon. Obi-Wan looks so painfully young in the image, and at the same time far older than he should, as though a great burden has been placed on his shoulders.
Yoda can tell from his haircut that he has only just has his braid removed, so it baffles him when the young one turns away to the flames and says in response to some question he cannot hear, "The council has given me permission to train you." Quite apart from why a newly Knighted Jedi would take on a Padawan right away, and why they would need explicit permission to do so – although he is young, and there may have been some debate over the wisdom of letting him take on the responsibilities of a Master as soon as he is Knighted – why is he telling the blurry child this at a funeral?
He sees the image again some years later, after Obi-Wan has left the Order to fight for peace on a war torn planet. Perhaps it is the way the Force chooses to reassure him that the young one will return, regardless, he hears Mace again, and his own voice before it, contemplative and concerned. "Always two there are. A Master and an Apprentice."
The phrase triggers his memory, and a chill runs through him at the thought of the Sith returning. He meditates on whether to share the warning with others, at least the rest of the Council, but the Force whispers that it is not the right time and that he should wait. So he waits, for the right time to warn the council of the approaching danger, and for young Obi-Wan to return to the Order, and in the meantime he looks up what the Order knows of the Sith.
Obi-Wan returns to the Temple and the years pass, the Jinn/Kenobi team going through more trials and growing closer, and he sees nothing new as Obi-Wan grows closer and closer to the age he looked as he stood in front of the funeral pyre. Time moves on, and he wonders how long it will be before the Force stops telling him to wait in telling the council of his premonitions of the Sith.
After the two leave for a small mid/outer-rim world where a trade dispute is taking place, he catches a glimpse of Obi-Wan, older than the just-Knighted Padawan that has haunted him with a frequency that suggests that future is almost set, and unlikely to change, though younger than the man he saw in his first vision on the subject over a decade ago. He stands with his saber lit, dishevelled from some unknown fight, between a groaning, fuzzy figure clad in brown Jedi robes and sporting a Padawan braid, and someone whose identity he cannot discern for the darkness clinging to it. All he can tell is that it is another humanoid, and it lifts its appendage and lightning shoots out. Obi-Wan catches it on his lightsaber. He is the picture of calm confidence and he quips, "I don't think so," yet Yoda can see the shadows under his eyes, the lines of exhaustion and a slight pinched and paleness to his face that the old Jedi knows from long experience speaks of not having had enough food and water, in humans.
He worries, and meditates once more on bringing the Sith to the council's attention. He knows they will likely not believe him, but they might, and he admits to himself that it wears on him, knowing of the danger, knowing that he will not be completely believed should be speak, being told that the time has not yet come for things to be revealed. This time though, the Force has a different message for him even as it reminds him to wait. Soon, it whispers, soon, be ready.
And so he is, as much as he can be, when Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi return from Naboo, having witnessed the dispute escalate into an invasion, with the possible Chosen One in tow as a souvenir of their emergency stopover on Tatooine, and with news of having fought a being trained in the Force – Jedi Arts, Jinn says, as for so long the Jedi have been thought to be the only Force sensitive group to train their members to that level – who wielded a red lightsaber.
Jinn's determination to train his "Chosen One" blinds him to the dangers the child poses, and the hurt he is inflicting on his own Padawan. Yoda is reminded of how he clung to his pain over Xanatos's turn before Obi-Wan came into his life, of how he blinded himself to what the Force was telling him and instead listened only to what he wanted to hear. The child's future is clouded by the Dark side, and Yoda is unsure whether it is the Sith or the deep-rooted fear that the child harbours within himself.
The Force tells him that Jinn and Obi-Wan must stay together for now, and the other councillors feel it telling them the same, though if any of them feel the faint sense of foreboding he does when he thinks of Jinn and young Skywalker together, they do not mention it. They send the three back to Naboo when the Queen decides to return.
A few days later, Obi-Wan Kenobi contacts them with the news that he and his Master fought what the captured Trade federation claims is a Sith, that he killed what was definitely a Dark-sider, and that his Master is dead, his last wish that Obi-Wan train the boy.
Many members of the council travel to Naboo with the new Supreme Chancellor, to investigate the possibility – probability, when they take into account Yoda's visions of what he now suspects is Master Jinn's funeral – of a Sith being involved, to familiarise themselves with the new Supreme Chancellor, and to hear in person young Obi-Wan's report of the battle to better decide what to do with him, and the child. They discuss it on the way there, all of them and just Mace and Yoda, Mace being firmly against letting the child into the Order. He changes his tune once they get to Naboo and he gets a good look at the shatterpoints around the two, though. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are inextricably bound by destiny, he claims, and it would be better to have Skywalker where they can keep an eye on him than to leave the youngling to his own devices, especially now that there is a Sith roaming the galaxy and looking for an apprentice.
There is no doubt any more about it being a Sith. They have all felt the echoes in the Force in the hanger and the generator, and heard Padawan Kenobi's account. Any discussion of giving him a temporary master for a year or so until he is ready halts after he gives his report – he has already taken them and passed, and in harrowing circumstances. He is the first Jedi to be Knighted for defeating a Sith in over a thousand years, and he immediately starts working on getting permission to train Skywalker in accordance with Jinn's last wishes.
The child's future is even more clouded than it was before, and Yoda resists, but the council overrules him. He delivers the news to Obi-Wan by himself, of his Knighting and of his permission, and he uses the opportunity to gauge how deep Obi-Wan's determination is to carry out Skywalker's training. The new Knight's response both worries and relives him. Relief, because less commitment would be an utter disaster of a Master/Padawan relationship, and he now knows that Obi-Wan has thought this through, and worry because Skywalker's path is deeply shadowed, with danger to both Skywalker himself and the Order looming, and because Obi-Wan will now walk it with him. It does explain why he has had few visions of Obi-Wan past this point though, something he wondered at as the time the visions kept drawing his attention to drew increasingly nearer.
Right after the conversation, which he ends with telling Obi-Wan that, in the absence of his Master he has the right to cut his own braid or have a council member do it for him, there is the funeral. Obi-Wan asks Yoda to cut the braid before they go, saying it is because Yoda has always believed in him, and if his Master cannot be there, he would like to have it be another mentor do so. Yoda feels oddly humbled as he does so with no ceremony beyond a few traditional words, knowing that it was always the Force that believed in Obi-Wan. Yoda just listened and came to share that belief in the-initiate-with-a-too-quick-temper who became the-Padawan-who-defeated-a-Sith-in-battle. Obi-Wan carefully coils the braid and puts it in a pocket, and they walk to the funeral where they part, Obi-Wan going to stand beside Skywalker, Yoda moving to join Mace. As the pyre burns, he hears Skywalker ask what will happen to him. Obi-Wan replies, with the words Yoda knew he would use.
As Yoda watches the pyre of one of the Order's best saber wielders, he worries at the knowledge that another being is out there, one who taught the Sith that killed this Jedi Master or was taught by it, and he voices this concern to Mace, only belatedly realising that he has spoken the exact words he heard himself say twelve years ago. "Always two there are. A Master and an Apprentice."
"But which one was destroyed? The Master or the Apprentice?"
They turn back to the pyre, each contemplating the question, and as Yoda stares into the flames, he sees once more the very first vision he had, of the grieved man kneeling by blurred shapes, only the shapes are not so blurred any more, and he can see that they are small bodies, though no more than that. He meets Yoda's eyes, his own haunted, and in that moment all the grief and the pain that the Obi-Wan in the vision is feeling crashes through the ancient Jedi. "Who could have done this?"
He's not sure he wants to know. But he is a Jedi, and so he reaches out anyway, seeking the answer that the Obi-Wan he just saw and felt, with immediacy that is rare in visions of the future, somehow knew deep in his mind. There is no answer.
That is the time when the Dark side starts to truly cloud things, and he sees nothing more set that far away, and in time even seeing a few days ahead becomes near impossible.
There is nothing he can do but wait for a chance to make a difference that never comes, and worry.
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