Interwoven
The Force surrounds us, penetrates us, binds all things together.
It is both loom and pattern on which the work of teaching is slowly, painstakingly crafted. It is also, from the viewpoint of deep wisdom, the only true weaver, one whose artisanship is beyond valuation, unique, infallibly original – and which cannot be possessed except by those who submit themselves to be meshed into the skeins of its binding, body and soul.
This invisible masterpiece evolves daily, hourly around us. Tears and sweat are its warp and weft; blood sometimes dyes its pristine fibers to the courageous hue of devotion, sacrifice. It is ornamented by glittering victory, silken threads of humor, of compassion. Its tapestry-forms deepen and widen as time passes, brighter and harder-edged, more elaborate, more permanent.
It is the exquisite linen of regal privilege, of sacred gift; it is the rough cordage of servitude, of obedience.
Its humble emblem is the padawan's braid.
"It's not particularly long," Obi-Wan laments.
"Nor are you particularly experienced, or very old," his newly appointed mentor smiles, delineating the obvious.
A gentle pout meets this pronouncement, the merest contraction of brows and a subtle jutting of the chin somehow sufficient to convey the textured reproval of a cynic or a sage. "I am nearly thirteen."
"And yet you have been upon this path for nearly… what? Two days?"
"But that is true of you also, Master. Technically."
Qui-Gon's chuckle stirs the Force, warmth gusting among reed chimes. "You are nearly out of line, young one."
Petulance scuds away, blue-green eyes widening in alarm. "I am sorry, Master – I meant no disrespect."
"I know. As you grow in wisdom, this too will grow… as will your responsibilities, the burdens placed upon your shoulders, the tasks set before you – and, let us hope, your ability to temper your wit." The tall Jedi tweaks his impertinent student's braid stub between thumb and forefinger.
"…Ow."
"Also, so will this particular reminder grow more inspirational."
His stern tone deceives neither of them.
They return to quarters within twenty minutes of the Council's formal approval.
"Hell's moons," Feemor mutters, beneath his breath. "How did you aquire these?... And a balcony?" His fair brows rise in disbelief.
"You have much still to learn." Qui-Gon quips.
The younger man – by a mere handful of years, a shade of difference in rank – smirks in amusement. "Apparently. Either that or you have better connections."
"Both," the tall Knight assures him, jauntily. "Tahl helped," he admits, as an afterthought.
Feemor Ossus nods, surveying his new home with manifest approval. "Well, then….. shall we, Master?"
Qui-Gon blinks bemusedly at the novel honorific. He is focused on the present moment – but destiny is thrusting upon him a wholly unexpected role. "Yes."
They kneel, evening's mellow sunlight and the Force pooling about their knees in tranquil lagoons of gold. The new master fingers his brother's already long braid, pausing at the tight band of black thread at its terminus. Bereavement.
"Would you…. begin where he ended?" Feemor requests, head bowed.
"Of course." He was appointed to this task by the padawan's former mentor. He cannot refuse another Jedi's dying wish, even though he cannot fathom its motivation. Nor will he turn aside his younger brother in the Force. Even the Council approves, wonder of wonders.
It is simply that he has never done this before. He inhales, gently separates the tufted gold below the black marker, and takes up the weaving where it was left off. Student, teacher, the Force: these are one….
It strikes him like a gong note: it is not Feemor, who stands poised a scarce year or two from Knighthood , who still has much to learn.
It is he.
He ties off the new length of braid, mouth quirking at one corner. The Force works in mysterious ways.
He wakes to a soft collision against the plastoid of his bedchamber's door, and a spiking disturbance in the Force. Winnowing his own adrenal response from its source, Qui-Gon bolts upright, waves the portal open.
A somnambulant figure peers into the dark within, faintly illumined by reflected light outside the open balcony.
"Obi-Wan."
Another dream. A bad one, by the feel of it.
"Where is he?" the boy demands, hoarsely. He stumbles forward a pace, unseeing.
The Jedi master rises, grasps the distraught padawan's slender shoulders. "Wake up," he commands.
Nightmare-glazed eyes stare up at him blankly, then narrow and blink rapidly, place and time reasserting themselves, a magnetic compass taking new moorings. "Oh," the youngling hiccups. "Master?"
"Let it pass," the tall man advises, as Unifying vision ebbs away, dissipating into the Force's smoothing currents. "Breathe."
Obi-Wan scowls into the dim recesses of their chambers. "…There was another boy," he explains, lamely. " The same as me, but Dark. I have to stop him….."
"It was a dream. Be present in the here and now."
The padawan slumps a trifle, disciplining his breath, his surging blood. "Unh," he grunts, the barest hint of a whimper in his voice.
Qui-Gon nudges the light controls, bathes them in artificial dawn. "Go shower. Wake up." He propels his charge toward the 'fresher, thrusts a clean towel into his hands. "Scoot."
Ten minutes later, his much subdued apprentice reappears, exuding palpable mortification. "I am sorry to disturb you, Master."
The Jedi master dismisses this apology with a gracious gesture. "Here. Kneel down." They fall into familiar routine, the elder parting and smoothing damp strands of auburn, crossing crossing crossing. Teacher, student, the Force: these are one. "Release," he admonishes his protégé, as the braid evolves between his deft fingers, anchorage to the solid and real, to the truth of the present and freedom, the sure foundation of guidance and protection. The vision flutters resentfully at their periphery and flees into the fading night, leaving them tethered securely to the Living Force and their mutual center.
He trails Dooku's steps – for the last time – down corridor and up stairwell, out into the night beneath Coruscant's veiled stars, atop the Temple's lofty roof. The five white spires tower above them, solemn sentinels to this rite.
The Jedi master flicks his ebony cloak over one shoulder and gazes upward to the clouded heavens. A pale crescent peeks over one crenallated horizon; endless air traffic swarms in a wide carillon on all sides. The city-planet thrums frenetically even at this hour, oblivious to Life's cycles, to the ebb and flow of nature. The galaxy's hopes and ambitions fall inward to this gravitational center, to this whirlpool center, to its glittering and corrupt heart, until there is barely space to breathe upon the world's over-burdened surface.
The ten thousand worlds above smile down complacently upon their capitol, their throne.
Dooku withdraws the severed braid from his inner pocket, letting the chestnut plait slide through his fingers, its markers and bindings so many indelible brands of experience. With sacrificial gravitas, he unwinds the ties, nimble fingers un-binding that which has been bound for a decade and more, the labyrinth of duty and devotion, the tight knot of apprenticeship. Qui-Gon watches, fascinated, as the strictures and oaths of his adolescence, of his youth, are dissolved before his eyes.
A cool wind gusts between their boots, tugs at cloak hems and tabards. Dooku opens his fingers, surrendering the strands of hair to its whimsical flurry. They are lifted, spun and carried away, swiftly swallowed by the night, by the stars above, by the ravening city and its three trillion inhabitants.
And they stand together, yet strangely separate, atop the seeming roof of the world.
"You are no longer bound to my service and teaching," the dark-eyed master proclaims, aristocratic bearing as upright, as stoic, as ever. "This fealty you now owe to the Force itself. And of that vow there can be no un-binding."
Qui-Gon bows, deeply, a last thanksgiving for what has been imparted, a final severance from what has gone before.
Dooku fixes him with a last penetrating look. "Do honor to your lineage – and guard your heart, my friend," he advises, the faintest hint of a bittersweet smile curving his mouth as he pivots and leaves, cloak an obsidian waterfall coursing at his heels.
The young Knight touches the place on his scalp where he has been shorn of one obedience, ushered into another and greater. The absence of his braid is , perhaps, the lightening of a burden.
He remains in meditation upon the rooftop until dawn.
Xanatos is not aware that his mentor is watching; precociously skilled though he may be, Qui-Gon's shielding is beyond subtle, woven of bodiless Light and three decades' experience.
The raven-haired youth preens a bit before the mirror.
Why this should disturb him, the older Jedi cannot explain. Vanity is a hallmark of adolescence, and members of the Order are not immune from common human failings, howsoever strict their discipline. Yet his gut stirs with uneasiness – a twist some might call premonition – as his padawan smoothes his ebony learner's braid over one shoulder, elegant fingers tracing carefully over each successive marker, the impressive narrative of past milestones and accomplishments.
Xan is an admired senior padawan, a promising Knight-to-be.
He is also proud. Arrogant.
The boy's master exhales, softly frowning. Where has he taken the fatal misstep, that his protégé wears his honoraria like the crown jewels of some exalted house? Or is it hereditary? Xanatos was born in the flesh to stiff-necked nobility, though his adoption in the Force has grafted him in much humbler lineage. And how shall he arraign the boy for false pride when he himself has displayed perhaps unbecoming pleasure in each successive victory?
They are both at fault, surely.
The padawan's braid is ornament to his ego….. but it could also constrict into a noose, into the slip-knot lure of Darkness.
Qui-Gon wishes, suddenly, that he might undo the braid, untwist its sinuous path to the beginning and start again, with greater wisdom in his heart and less fulsome praise upon his tongue. But it is too late for that now. They must go forward, for better or worse.
The sniper fires two shots, in rapid succession.
Jedi reflexes – the Force's premonitory gift – sheer instinct: Qui-Gon's instantaneous flinch to one side saves him. Obi-Wan twists away at the same instant, the second toxic dart skimming a hairsbreadth from his jaw and planting itself in the wall opposite.
Heartbeat. The Force thuds in warning.
"Master."
Their eyes lock. The young Jedi lowers his blood-spattered fingers. His earlobe is torn; the deadly projectile nicked him. Barely.
The would-be assassin is fleeing; they could apprehend him and end this tedious game – but there is no time.
Heartbeat.
Obi-Wan's eyes narrow, appraisingly. He shakes his head, a rigidly contained shrill of alarm blossoming behind his stoic exterior.
A nick is enough to kill. Qui-Gon catches him as he lurches forward, abruptly off-balance. They sink into kneeling position, first meditation lotus, knee to knee.
"You know what to do." The tall man spreads one hand against his pupil's already pallid face. Their pulses ratchet into battle-rhythm, then slow, steady out. Obi-Wan's teeth are gritted.
"Focus," the Jedi master admonishes. "Purge it. Use the Force."
Pain lances down both their spines, crushing breath away in a double iron fist. The Force surges, volcanic and untamed.
Qui-Gon seizes the dangling learner's braid, exerts a steady pressure. "Stay with me."
A shaking hand balls in the fabric of his tabards; another claws into his shoulder. A sweat-slicked forehead drops to rest against his.
"You can do it. Stay calm. Concentrate."
This is not how he would have intended a test of newly-acquired skill… but there is no choice.
Heartbeat. Another. Slower. Another. Slower.
Time expands, the galaxy spirals inward to a single center. Spirit contends with gross matter, gladiators clashing in a merciless arena, in a battle with but one agonizingly tiny blow exchanged.
Slower. Slower. Stop.
Endless solitary heartbeat.
…And the victor slumps forward, spent but whole. Qui-Gon exhales, releasing the moment, the mission, the escaped enemy, all emotion, an oceanic swell of energy. His fingers are still twined in the padawan's braid, the narrow umbilicum connecting them.
Attachment is forbidden, but he remains upon his knees, cradling his exhausted companion as the Force's tempest dissolves into placidity.
Qui-Gon stoops to retrieve the severed coil of hair from the marble floor before he bestows upon Feemor Ossus the formal embrace of brotherhood, hands upon shoulders, a kiss upon either cheek.
They are Knights and equals now, two men still in their youth, two hearts dedicated utterly to the service of an ancient Order, to the will of the Force itself. Language is insufficient to contain the enormity of the moment, and so they say nothing.
The witnesses ' approval warms the morning light around them, casts a communal benediction upon the event. Some linger respectfully a few paces away; others politely excuse themselves to other duties, softly taking their leave in a sweep of robes or a skirl of long cloak.
Qui-Gon presses the braid into Feemor's powerful hand, and the latter accepts is gravely, wrapping the copper-gold length about his fingers, once twice and three times, into a loose circle, the end which is a beginning. He tucks the memento beneath his outer tunic, against his heart. "I will remember and honor all that I have learned," he promises.
A dry chuckle. "Perhaps not all." There were one or two… incidents… which remain discreetly expunged from the official mission reports in the Archives, and which might do well to remain veiled in a comfortable obscurity.
Knight Ossus claps his comrade upon a broad shoulder. "Your secrets are safe with me."
They fall into step side by side, heading by mutual consent toward the hangar bay and a much-anticipated celebratory pilgrimage to the city.
Obi-Wan leans against the lift's burnished inner surface, twisting his learner's braid and its blue marker between fretful fingers.
"You disapprove?" his teacher inquires, one brow lifting.
The furrow stamped between the young man's brows deepens. "I do not see why my actions merit special recognition," he confesses. "It seems…. pretentious. Braggardly."
Qui-Gon folds his hands into opposite sleeves. "Ah, that I would live to see my padawan openly questioning the Council's judgement."
The scowl sharpens into something fierce. "It's not that, Master…. It's just…."
"You do not wish to bear a badge of honor you have not earned? "
His student shakes his head, perplexed. "I did nothing special; I simply remembered all you have taught me and listened to the Force's prompting. Why the Council should – "
"Think of it as a command, then, not a trophy." The tall man reaches forward, grasps the dangling braid by its end, where the new twist of sapphire thread proclaims his companion a peacekeeper. "A mandate to do thus always, not laurels upon which to rest."
Obi-Wan relaxes visibly. "Oh."
"You see? Focus determines our reality."
"Yes, Master."
They hit bottom with a gentle hush of pressure pistons, and exit the lift in amicable silence.
"Are we finished, Qui-Gon?" Dooku's voice is taut, laced with a cultured revulsion.
His gangling fifteen year old apprentice pants, teeth gritted, fighting an internal battle.
How can it ever be finished? His choices were wrong - his reckless pursuit of instinct, of compassion – of what he thought was compassion, what he thought was instinct : these led to catastrophe, to failure, to injury and death. He intended none of it, he only intended –
"Qui-Gon!" The Jedi master's voice resounds within him, his shields useless against the man's authoritative intrusion, the hold upon his spirit.
The padawan swallows down a sob. A hand curls tightly in his nerf-tail, a firm pressure bespeaking aggravation and commitment to see this unpleasantness through to the bitter end.
"Disobedience is a grave failing,"Dooku informs him. A sigh. "it cannot continue to flourish unabated in your character. Look and look well- you see what it reaps as reward."
Was it disobedience that prompted him? He thought it was the voice of the Living Force…. Yet disaster was his reckoning, his share in glory. His shoulders curl inward as another howl threatens to break past his guard.
He is so tired.
His master is beyond displeased. He has failed the Force, somehow, and his oath along the way.
"Let us be finished," Dooku sighs. He too is weary, disgusted with the entire episode.
Even a Jedi possesses limits. Qui-Gon sucks in a deep breath. His voice cracks, but he manages the words, somehow. "I accept your censure and correction, my master, and I shall strive hereafter to rectify my conduct, may the Force and your wisdom aid my effort."
The recitation is rote, but it suffices. It is, after all, a full surrender. Dooku tosses the cane aside with a voiceless curse, the word "uncivilized" escaping him in a muttered undertone. His footfalls fade into the distance, and for a moment his miserable padawan thinks he has been left alone. The tears overflow their dam, salty with regret, with frustration, with exhaustion. And pain.
Dooku returns. He makes no trenchant remark upon this shameful display.
Instead he painstakingly unbinds and then rebraids his learner's plait, a tight leash upon a straying pup, his mouth pressed into humorless line. He has a sacred duty; he whom he has sworn to guide upon the path will not wander from its narrow bounds.
"Now we are finished," he declares.
"My place is by your side."
How often has he countenanced this argument, patiently borne the weight of a loyalty that, by dint of its solar intensity, borders on rebellion? Qui-Gon holds up a weary hand. "This is different. "
"No, it is not, Master. With respect."
The boy- man- standing before him is also no different, and yet subtly different. He is no longer a child – and the inevitable battle ahead is no diplomatic crisis. It will be a bloody struggle for dominance, for survival.
It will be war, though the history books and the Senate report will euphemize it as a skirmish, or border "conflict." The Jedi master releases a pent breath and glowers at his obstinate apprentice. "How will your death promote an acceptable outcome to this mission?" he demands, uncharacteristically bitter.
It has been a hellish span of weeks.
But the stress has worn Obi-Wan thin, too – deference is all but gone, hammered down to a translucent veneer over what lies beneath: something much more powerful, more problematic. "This mission can go to the blazes. My place is by your side."
The tall man growls. "Padawan – "
" It is my right, Master. Am I of no use to you? Is my saber of no use to you?" he adds, cutting to the bone, to the brutal truth. "This is no ambassadorial summit, you know. This is war."
They should have one another's backs. They are trained warriors, though they are dedicated to peace.
Obi-Wan will someday be a peerless fighter. He is close to it now.
Defeated, the Jedi master closes his eyes. He does not have the energy to fight this battle as well as that which must follow. "Very well. I take strong exception to the idea, but I will permit it."
"Good."
They meditate together, and Qui-Gon's calloused hands carefully, solemnly re-braid his student's frazzled plait, winding each strand close and tight about the others, the Force uniting them in one purpose, in one deadly commitment to stand or fall together.
And when he is done, they rise and go forth to battle.
Xanatos' voice is cracked with agony. His imprecation is fractured, squeezed from a throat parched by fury. The words are lost upon their intended target, but their sense burns clearly in the Force – a condemnation, a cry of betrayal.
"I hate you!" he screams, bloodied and burned fingers scrabbling with the blunt knife's blade.
"I do not hate you," Qui-Gon chokes out.
The young Jedi – is he, anymore?- rudely hacks the braid from its mooring, tearing the last few hairs out by the roots, casting it from himself like a venomous serpent. "Leave me!" he hollers, clutching at his injuries, curling in a fetal ball upon the stained pavement of his hereditary home.
"Xan," the tall man pleads.
"Noooo!" The Force erupts with black lava, an outpouring of festered and rotting anger.
Qui-Gon reels backward, revolted, stunned into silence, into compliance.
"Go away! Damn you and the Jedi to the lowest Sith-hell, Qui-Gon Jinn!"
The words echo in his ears during all three hundred fifty seven and a half parsecs of the return journey, and for nine years after that.
The chamber is ordinarily reserved for funerals; the stone pyre-table stands at its focal point, unadorned and stark, the final resting place of many a Jedi's mortal remains.
Obi-Wan flows down the terraced benches, to the central dais, Qui-Gon at his heels. They hesitate before the sculptured slab, eyes meeting briefly. The day , the hour, the moment has come and gone; an immensity has been bridged, a journey reached impossible completion. And yet they still stand, scarred but not felled, both wiser, sadder, older, deeper in the Force.
It has been a long stretch of years, though shorter than most apprenticeships.
The younger man withdraws the severed braid from within his wide sleeve and ceremoniously deposits it upon the stone slab's very center, where a tiny pile of tinder and Chanridrilan incense awaits. Its length is marked by blue and green, gold and white, the peacekeeper's blue, bereavement's obsidian, crimson for a trial of spirit. The path was laborious, complex, steep, fraught with obstacles and strife.
They hold their hands above it, sparking fire from the Force's latent depths, summoning consuming flame. Attachment is forbidden; the past is to the present as body to spirit, gross matter to luminous, ever-living Light. Hair and thread go up in pillars of flickering white, yellow, the burning incense curling upward in soft pennants. Soon all that remains is fragile ash and an elusive scent, the immolated remnants of that which was always doomed to extinction, to its natural end.
They gaze upon the funerary pyre and smile, each softly in the gentle shadows of this place.
For that which passes through fire is rendered immortal, luminous, enduring.
Everything has changed, and yet nothing has.
"It is done," Obi-Wan says. He glances sideways, seeking – but not needing – affirmation.
"Yes," Qui-Gon agrees. It is begun.