Disclaimer: As always, I don't own these characters - they belong to George Lucas! I'm just making fragile sandcastles on George's lovely beach...
"SONG OF THE NIGHT"
The Western Dune Sea sank into the dusky purple twilight as that barren and desolate region of Tatooine once more edged into the welcoming darkness.
Ben Kenobi stood in the doorway of his small home and gripped his battered cloak tightly around himself.
The night was calling him.
With weary feet which compacted the slippery sand, he walked slowly and with difficulty into the darkness once again, along the same path he had trudged many times before, until he stood atop the nearby sand-hill, silhouetted against the all-embracing night.
The blackness spilled across the land from the deep, deep indigo sky. Thousands of stars glittered and twinkled in the crisp desert air which already chilled his breath so it rose like a faint ribbon of smoke towards the distant heavens.
Like a siren-voice which only he could hear, the song of the night swept through the darkness and pierced his soul with hushed whispers of wonder; and of a silent, sacred promise of an eternity yet to come.
Ben Kenobi pulled his cloak around his shoulders, and shivered as he stood there in the stillness of the night. His eyes were pools of midnight blue which glistened and sparkled with their own silent stars, twin mirrors of the universe which lay in transcendent glory above him.
The darkness swept over him, and around him, and he wore it proudly like another cloak. He did not fear the darkness. The darker the night, the brighter the stars shone, and he knew he was a child of the Light.
The darkness could not hurt him. Nothing could hurt him any more. Because of Anakin, he had already suffered the raw, ragged agony of betrayal from someone he had once loved as a brother, and the pain of that loss would stay with him forever.
No, he did not fear the darkness. That friendship, all that Anakin had been and everything that Anakin had hoped to be - all had been lost to a far greater darkness than this. Kenobi had nothing else to fear now, except his own memories and regrets.
Once upon a time - a long time ago, when his name had been Obi Wan Kenobi - he had travelled from one side of the galaxy to the other, but now, all he had was the night, which only reminded him of all that he had lost; and the stars, which tormented him with their pure ethereal beauty, but which were forever out of reach.
Yet whenever it called to him, he had to go. To observe a few moments of hushed silence, in sacred communion with the Force. To stand outside under the soft cover of silver starlight and watch the sweet velvet darkness creep across the shallow shadowy sands as another night rolled slowly by, and to remind himself that he was not alone - that there were other Jedi out there in the galaxy, in exile, as he was.
So, with a heart full of longing over what had once been, and also of wishes and hopeful promises of what might yet - one day - still come to be, he kept his silent vigil in remembrance of his fellow Jedi on far-distant worlds, separated by distance but connected as one through the vast eternal ocean of the Force.
The cool night always made him somehow feel closer to them, whereas the harsh glare of day, almost unbearable as the twin suns reached their noon, made him feel like a desperate prisoner, as it burnished the sky, enclosing him within its molten cage of liquid light. The dry, gritty air parched his throat and the heat stifled his lungs, but, through his own choice, he was trapped on this world.
Only after the suns had set, and the stars shone out, did he feel free. The darkness showed him that there was still a universe beyond Tatooine, and for that glimpse of unreachable freedom, bitter-sweet though it was, he was grateful.
So when the night called to him, he had to answer. To keep his solitary vigil, just for a little while. To bathe his fragile soul in the gentle embrace of distant starlight. And to remember his solemn duty to the small child he had promised to watch over, who was growing up on a moisture-farm not too far away, and whose destiny might one day change the fate of an entire galaxy.
And as the night-winds called to him from across the deep and mighty ocean of Creation, he was comforted in the knowledge that the Force never sleeps, but is always watchful, as It bides Its time waiting for the arrival of a new hope.
So no matter how dark the night, even the faintest star could give him hope.
And hope was all he had.
But whilst he still had hope, he would never be alone
THE END