Author's note: I posted this little story here to celebrate the end of my final exams for the year. The subject matter is perhaps overdone, at best, and is old ground that has been trod by many writers far worthier than I, but I hope my essay into this area will be found acceptable.
Rebellion takes place about eleven months after the events of RotS.
Disclaimer: All recognisable characters are property of Lucasfilm. I make no monetary profit from this, nor do I intend to.
Part I: The Burial Of Caravans
The bitter suns, crouched low and jealous in the cauterised white sky, cast a hard-edged gaze upon the endless swathes of desert sand. Burned by the young morning suns, sand and sky merged at some distant point into a prostrate white blankness. Throughout the simmering air of the desert, still and gasping for breath, in all its wide sparse stretches of light tan sand and planes of seared rock, there was not so much an outpouring of blazing heat from the baleful suns as there was a marked absence of any relief from Tatooine's pitiless nature. Yet though no wind blowing across the wasteland softened the slap of the suns' stinging heat, and no drop of cool rain fell from any grey wisp of passing cloud, it had sheltered for three years now a lonely man outlawed from the Empire.
The outlaw limped now over the dunes, his faded brown hood offering a paltry shield from the suns for his lined weary face. He ran a swollen tongue over his dry lips, wondering, not for the first time, nor for the last, why he had not thought to bring any water. In a strange and delicate way that was quite removed from the limitations and needs of his body, he enjoyed these long, entirely voluntary walks he often undertook. Here, beneath the shade of a rock, in the lee of a dune, through a burrow in the sand, life held on under the desert's lack of mercy, fingers scrabbling for a handhold in the sheer walls of the pit, legs swinging as it clung to light above the yawning chasm. Whenever he was given a chance, he did his utmost to give it a hand up.
He walked, thought, lived, this outlaw—breathed in, out, the dry burning air of the desert, watched the sluggish sand lizards at the fringes of his vision, heard the roar of the krayt dragons in the throes of their passion far off, gave no resistance to the fierceness of the animal hope of life. Defiantly, he raised his greying head to the proud, youthful suns looming just above the horizon,
And saw, with an exponentialling horror, an orange cloud rearing its huge domed head above the horizon as billowing folds of xanthin sand slipped away and fell roaring toward him, a smothering blanket that thundered past the suns and tore up sand and sky so that they seemed no longer old and thin and burned but vigourously alive and armed with claws of flaming sand that ripped the weary air. He stood paralysed, heard three heartbeats pounding so loud in his ears, and ran like an animal.
He could not outrun the winds that sped unchecked over the desert flats, he knew, without the Son of Suns at his side. And still Obi-Wan ran, and looked back. Trembled, feared, sweated. He would not make it to the west side of the Jundland Wastes before this southeasterly storm did. Why, for love of the Force, had he come so far from safety, alone? Had he hoped for a glimpse of Luke Skywalker? Fool he, seeking hope. Hopeless.
'Aaah…'
Focus your concentration here and now, where it belongs.
'…unh.' Sprawled on the ground, he choked sand down his parched throat. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled a few more steps before turning to face the oncoming storm. It was a full-blown sandstorm—khar-effendi, the Jawas named it: that which flays the beasts, or namir-faladh: the burial of caravans. And he stood, here, defenceless, a dozen klicks from the only shelter he knew. Already, his right foot and left lower calf were trapped in settling sand. He yanked them free, and scanned the vicinity for any form of shelter.
A large dark mass that had a comforting bulk about its form through the poor visibility, not far off…He remembered leaning into the shade of a granite overhang weeks ago, as he rested on the way to Anchorhead. It could save his life today. The rock was on his right, northward, a little less then three klicks away, a distance he could cover in ten minutes. And so he ran, being careful this time to watch his step.
The storm's fury was almost upon him, suns shining biliously through the swirling clouds of yellow sand. He had the sudden sensation of swimming, and the image of the granite overhang wavered, trembled, as though viewed through depth of lakewater. He was no longer aware whether he was treading the sand flats or was being borne aloft on streaming currents of sand grains that drove through gaps and rents in his tunic, into his skin.
He slowed as he reached his safety. The last he had seen it, the rocky outcropping had been more than six times his height. Now it was two-thirds its original towering grandeur. He stepped forward, focused on the rock, drew himself into a shallow crease within the ancient folds of igneous rock. Pensively, he tucked his legs under him. Shelter from the storm. It was his first time enduring khar-effendi outdoors. How this planet aged one! Harsh and hard and bleak—he constantly felt as though he walked the edge of a steel blade. And yet the desert was filled with light. Obi-Wan glanced toward the low-slung suns, just visible through the thickening sand, and fought to clamp down on the pain of memory that swelled within him at the thought.
Oh, Anakin.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he allowed past wounds to be stingingly bathed in momentary, saline recollection. When he opened them, he realised with dizzying shock that the sand drifts piling in front of his temporary shelter were almost high enough to block his view of the pallid sky. Evidently, although he was on the leeward side of the rock, his back to the wind, he could not afford to detach himself from the present. Focus your concentration…He stifled a quiet groan. How many times had Qui-Gon exhorted him to do just that? How often had he said the same to Anakin?
A jaw muscle twitched as he tried to relax his tense body. He was getting rusty, having failed thus far to follow Master Yoda's strict meditation regime. He dared not consciously touch the Force any more, for fear that would lead Vader to him—and Luke. Tentatively, he released his hold over his conscious mind just a little, letting the Force trickle rather than flow, feeling like an awkward four-year-old embarking on his first meditation exercises all over again. It was no longer as natural as breathing to him, but still Obi-Wan took to the renewed presence of the Force in him like a parched man to water.
No. Not quite. He was careful. Controlled. The storm crashed around him, and he lay at its burning heart, and its blasting fury left a thousand tiny nicks in his skin, and he knew unspeakable darkness was outside its sphere. Control…He drew the Force to himself, not him to it. It blossomed at his touch, not to the steel-scalding, starbursting, cosmos-enveloping vastness Qui-Gon had shown him so long ago, but so he knew each dust particle around the rock in which he crouched, in his clothes and hair and skin, grating against his physical tenderness. Physicalness. Sand chafed against his inner thighs as he shifted his weight and opened his eyes. He rose rather stiffly, and stood partially inside his semi-cave's mouth, kicking away sand drifts with his booted feet. The Force could be so dark and cold…
Memory convulsed through him again. Grief effervesced, and fulminated in his ears, louder and more terrible than any sandstorm, not so much for what he had lost, but for what could have been. Briefly, he closed his eyes, reaching blindly, within and without, for comfort—it was then that he sensed it.
It was not a disturbance. It was a convergence, a condensation. Crystallisation. Solidification. A glowing warmth that felt so alien to the universe, and so—aah!—familiar. He jerked forward, his eyes snapping open, but there was nothing to be seen in the sandstorm outside.
Obi-Wan considered the two suns glaring down at him for a long moment, then inclined his head thoughtfully, almost respectfully, and retreated into the granite overhang. As he did so, an odd sensation caressed his consciousness, something he hadn't experienced in a long time. Years. Many years. But he had felt not so much that achingly familiar sensation as he had his response to it—an instinctive half-smile had formed on his mouth. He allowed himself a small grin that seemed somehow both more youthful and more tired that that initial, inbred reaction—that had taken habitual root over twelve years.
'I don't recall calling for you, Master. Yoda said—' It felt foolish, speaking softly to jaundiced sky and gusting sand, and yet somehow more dignified than attempting to communicate telepathically with some invisible entity.
And when do you think I began following Master Yoda's instructions, Obi-Wan?
He made the mistake—yet again!—of lifting his face to the surging storm outside. Tatooine did not allow for mistakes. They left you clinging desperately to survival, or sprawled helpless on the floor, or a semi-conscious burden on your Padawan's back. This time, though, he was punished with merely a painful blast of sand in his eyes that left his vision teary and blurred.
'Qui-Gon, I'll wait the storm out here.'
The Force sighed with regret. Did you see Luke today?
He turned into the shade, scrubbing at his burning eyes. 'And what if I have?'
Sometimes, Qui-Gon had been the perfect diplomat; other times, he was more direct than a lightsaber thrust. Obi-Wan was still trying to figure out which of the two tacks he was adopting when his Master's question echoed at him through the shifting sands of the Force: Do you love the boy?
He stiffened, his eyes narrowing as he kept his face turned away from the storm—as to why, he wasn't sure. He supposed that Qui-Gon, being now part of the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Force, would be able to read his facial expressions and body language from the inside of the cave just as well as from the outside. Anger bled into his terse reply. 'Which boy?' he asked aloud.
It depends on whether you love that which you cannot love, or that which is unlovable. Or none. Or both. To Obi-Wan, it seemed as though the storm had descended on him and condensed to form words not enough for them. For love, and for jealousy, for the sweet and for the bitter, for brotherhood and paternity and pain. There were not words enough. He drew his knees up against his chin, and his lost gaze found greyness in the firestorm of the sky and burning sand.
'Don't—' His voice cracked like a night wind purling the dunes, and he unexpectedly found enough strength to curse his weakness.
The storm that towered over his head roared like a lusty krayt dragon. Would you seal your ears against the will of the Force, now, Obi-Wan?
Sudden fury tore him from the relative safety of his hollow like a whiplash rending skin from flesh. He staggered out into merciless, pitiless khar-effendi, his throat dry with throbbing thirst, his eyes flooded with raging sorrow. Sand slashed across his vision, and he shouted, 'You're a fine one to talk, Master, about loving fallen Jedi!' But the wind howled louder, and blowing sand mauled his voice to a painful bleeding rasp. He shouted again, in words that were torn from him so quickly he could not hear them, and then he shouted some more, a wordless, primally universal cry.
He was only vaguely aware of running dazed, of confusion, turning so the wind blew straight at him, of sand leaving skin scraped raw and bleeding where his cloak did not cover his face and neck and hands. And, at the end, at the end, he was no longer aware of a firm gentleness that turned his body as he fell so that as darkness took him away from Tatooine, and khar-effendi, and Senators, and Naboo, and Mustafar, and beauty, and light, and evil, and heat, as his lips brushed dust and his arms embraced earth, he was a little more sheltered from the storm.