This was written for the December challenge in the Obi-wan and Qui-gon discussion thread at the JC forums. It mainly features Obi-wan, however.
As always, I am making no profit off of this so please don't sue me.
Enjoy and feedback is always aprreciated
Sitting by the fire, he heard the crackle of flames long gone. He heard the cries of people long dead. And he could feel his soul mourn for things of the distant past.
The fire provided the only light for the room's sole occupant. Outside, sight was obscured by the thick curtain of snow carpeting everything.
Everything passes with time.
How true that was Obi-wan, or Ben as he was more commonly known, thought.
His life seemed to come in phases, chapters, almost. It was easy to see where one ended and another began. They all seemed to end, or begin, with death: Qui-gon's death, Anakin's "death" and Luke "death."
The one death that was on his mind at the moment however, was Anakin's. The flames in the fireplace reminded him of many things from that time. He thought of the fires on the hellish planes of Mustafar. He thought of the Jedi temple, burned to the ground.
Guilt rolled over him, obscuring the light that was his soul. It left him gasping, blind, suffocating under the weight that he had carried with him for 20 odd years on a desert planet. It left him fighting. Fighting to ward off the very darkness that had claimed so many bright souls in those days.
In those days he and his brother were a team. In those days no one believed they could go wrong. In those days everyone had been wrong.
Because "the team" had gone wrong. Betrayal had ripped apart the bonds of brotherhood and lies had smothered a once strong bond.
The fire had come latter.
The fire had come when the betrayal was over and it was time to act.
Phantom screams still tore through Obi-wan's mind, even though he had not been there to protect those valiant beings that had stood against his lost apprentice.
The fire that had destroyed Obi-wan's past; the same the same element warmed him now.
But nothing could warm his cold soul.
It was ironic how fire could cut both ways. Destroying, yet warming. It could take your life as easily as it could save it.
Now however, Luke was lost to Vader's fire. Obi-wan had lost him aboard the Death Star after he had survived his second battle with Darth Vader.
More guilt upon his soul.
But there was hope for Luke. Obi-wan would see to it that Luke would not fall to darkness as his father did. No more would fall to Palpatine's grip. Obi-wan would either save him or kill him; just like the fire.