Summary: Anakin can't live without the Sea. Or the handsome man he met beneath its waves.
Notes: For Obikin Week 2018. Day 2. Mythology AU. Obi-Wan is a sea-god, and Anakin is a poor fisherman.
Of sea-gods and sailors
Wind rippled through canvas sails, filling them and sending the small, fishing vessel lurching joyfully from shore, to head for open seas.
The salt spray crashed over the deck and the gulls called to one another as Anakin, son of Shmi, stood looking back at the receding harbor. He lifted a hand to wave farewell to his mother and tried his best to ignore the presence of her new husband by her side, as well as that of the slender woman in rich clothes who watched him calmly from the end of the wharf.
Padmé Amidala was Governor of the island, a daughter of an old, influential family. Two months ago, she announced a decision to marry Anakin, a poor fisherman from the town. Everyone had applauded her choice as magnanimous and open-minded, and Anakin had avoided her ever since.
Anakin had never known his father, but he knew the Sea, had known the sea since before he had a name for it. His earliest memories were of being in his mother's arms as she dangled his little feet in the restless, white-capped waves. He knew its rhythms and moods more intimately than his own face or the sound of his mother's voice. He dreamed of its mercurial but calming presence, its raw power and impossible beauty at night.
Padmé seemed like a nice girl and she was pretty enough, but she'd told him he would have to give up the sea and his job after they were married. She couldn't understand that the sea was a part of him; as much him as his heart or his soul. Anakin could no more give up the sea than he could fly or become a knight in shining armor just to make her happy.
"I'm a fisherman," he'd told her. "I belong on the sea. I'm sorry, but I can't marry you."
She'd merely laughed lightly, like he'd said a joke. "Oh, Annie," she chided gently. "You won't feel that way once we're married."
She'd given his mother and new stepfather a grand house with a magnificent widow's peak in the best part of town. His mother adored her.
And Anakin?
Anakin felt like he was drowning.
"I need to leave," he told his mother as she watched him with a strange, knowing look in her eyes.
"Ever since you were a little boy," she agreed sadly, holding his hands in hers. She paused, hesitating for a moment. "Do you still…see him?"
Anakin shook his head quickly. "No," he assured her, not hearing the bitterness in his own voice. "That was just the foolish, desperate imaginings of a boy."
Shmi hummed, unconvinced.
Anakin had been nine when their neighbor, Sheev, took him out on a fishing boat for the first time. Sheev was a strange man, surrounded by dark looks and even darker gossip from the townspeople, and he was always hanging around the house while Shmi was at work.
One day, he asked if Anakin wanted to go fishing with him. Sheev's boat was as ill-kept as the man himself, but Anakin had longed to go out with the sailors since he could walk and, without telling his mother, he said yes.
They were far from shore, among a shoal of blue fish and striped bass, when the storm hit. One minute the skies were blue and calm, the next billowing black clouds covered the sun and thunder rumbled, as the ship rocked alarmingly among waves as tall as mountains. Sheev tried to keep them afloat, cursing and hissing the water which sought to claim him, but the small vessel was lost and the old man with it.
Anakin thought he was a goner as well, but then something strange and wonderful happened.
As Anakin struggled to stay above the waves, water filling his nose and mouth, there was suddenly someone beside him, a handsome young man with eyes the color of the sea in summer, changing between blue and grey and green even as Anakin looked at him. His smile was kind, his expression filled with cautious hope as he reached for the small boy.
"Anakin take my hand!"
Anakin didn't hesitate, feeling the stranger wrap him in warm arms before they disappeared beneath the waves and Anakin knew no more.
He'd awoken on a sandy beach, his bare toes tickled by lapping waves, to find his mother's frantic face above him. "Where is he?" he'd asked her. "My friend." And he had cried bitterly when the beautiful man couldn't be found.
Since that day the townspeople teased him about handsome sea gods and his mother watched him as though waiting. For what he did not know, and he could not bring himself to ask her.
Anakin had cursed his overactive imagination, his desperate loneliness which conjured a handsome youth straight from the sea. A friend. An angel.
He claimed it was all a childish hallucination, yet every once in a while, after days alone far out on the ocean, chasing deep water salmon or cod, he swore he caught a glimpse of changeable sea-foam eyes, the man's wry grin, the quirk of his brow, the sun glinting off auburn, sunset-colored hair. Sometimes at night, in his dreams, the beautiful man would be there, whispering endearments in Anakin's ear in an elegant voice, lovingly brushing errant strands of hair form his forehead.
Whenever Anakin awoke or took a second look he was gone; a trick of the light and the mind.
So, Anakin tried to forget, and to ignore. Most of the time it worked.
But now Padmé had claimed him; would take him from the sea forever. And he had to say…good-bye.
For days he headed away from the island, north and east, far out into the ocean where only the birds flew high above. For three days and nights, when the sun shone high above and the moon glowed bright at night, dolphins swam around him, leaping high into the air before the prow of his ship.
They called to him until he jumped into the waves with them for a while. One night there was a summer thunderstorm, which blew him far off course. When the skies cleared Anakin looked up at stars that were strange and a sea that was mellow and as smooth as glass.
Not a breath of wind stirred, and Anakin knew he wouldn't be able to sleep. Sitting along the gunwhale, resting his chin on smooth, polished wood he softly watched the sea shimmer in the moonlight like diamonds.
"Hello Anakin," said a gentle voice.
"Hello," he murmured back, unsurprised. It was the lovely voice of the man from his dreams. And then, because he couldn't help himself, he added, "I've been waiting for you."
"Have you?" said the voice, sounding genuinely surprised.
Anakin looked up at that. The man was older, just like Anakin was, but something about it seemed calculated to the young man; as though the beautiful apparition before him to assume any age he chose. The man was standing on the water several yards from the small fishing vessel. His clothes were well-made but austere and was as handsome as Anakin remembered; high-cheekbones, smooth, pale skin, silky, auburn hair and thin lips that looked so kissable to Anakin that the young man swallowed down sudden hunger.
Longingly he held out a hand over the water, palm up. "I was waiting for you," he said again. And then, so quietly it was almost a whisper, "where were you?"
A flash of something like guilt crossed that beloved face and then the man was crossing the space between them, stepping over the side of the boat and drawing Anakin into his arms. Anakin sighed and instantly relaxed, closing his eyes and burrowing his face into the hollow of the man's throat.
He was safe here.
"Oh, dear one," the man sighed, his arms tight and perfect around Anakin. "I tried to stay away," he explained, which was no explanation at all.
"Why?" And now Anakin's voice was agonized. Had he done something wrong?
The man's lips brushed Anakin's forehead as he spoke. Anakin wondered what would happened if he raised his face up and let those lips brush his own. "You had a life, a family, a future. I couldn't take you away from that."
"Why would you need to take me away?" Anakin swallowed and finally looked up, his eyes meeting the brilliant eyes of the ageless stranger. "Are you a god?"
"I am…of the sea," the man said. "And my name is Obi-Wan."
"I am of the sea too," Anakin protested. "I can't live without it!"
Obi-Wan's laughter was the music of a swift-flowing river. "You are human, dear one, and a reckless one at that, to venture so far from shore in such a small vessel."
"I had to see you. I have to be with you."
The sudden stillness in the sea-god was the sudden stillness before a summer storm. "Do you truly know what you are asking?" Obi-Wan said, careful and precise.
Anakin sat up and threaded his fingers through Obi-Wan's glorious hair, meeting those blue-green eyes as he spoke. "You've watched me all these years. I know you have. You know that I can't live without you; you must have seen it." He took a deep breath. "The Governor wants to marry me but I…I have to be with you."
Obi-Wan's smile was radiant and more beautiful than anything Anakin had ever seen. The young fisherman's heart stopped, and he bit his lip, not even daring to breath as he waited for the sea-god's answer.
"You know nothing about me," Obi-Wan whispered, and it was the sadness of an ageless being who forever watched but could not live.
Anakin shook his head stubbornly. "I know everything about you," he promised, and it was true. He had known the sea before he knew anything else.
Obi-Wan's lips were warm, and as the two of them disappeared beneath the silver sea Anakin felt a joy he had never before known fill his heart.
It was said that the townspeople on the island whispered of a golden-skinned fisher-youth who had loved the sea so much that the sea-god himself came and took the boy to live with him forever beneath the waves.
End Notes: Part-Greek mythology, part-New England whaling story, part-mermaid/sailor story lol.