EXCERPTS FROM THE AUDIO JOURNAL OF QUI-GON JINN, JEDI MASTER
Coruscant, Jedi Temple, 3:5:10
Today the healers have finally given me the permission to start exercising again, and I did not have to be told twice, as my tired body can attest.
I have performed some simple katas with Obi-Wan in the middle of my quarters, as Anakin watched us, wide-eyed.
I suppose our movements looked quite strange to him, and he did not look too convinced when I told him I will soon start to teach him how to perform them.
As for myself, I was surprised by the amount of coordination between me and my son. Perhaps I should have not been, given how well we fought together back on Naboo, but now I understand something I had not realized during the heat of the battle.
Obi-Wan has the uncanny ability to recalibrate his movements according to the person fighting or exercising at his side.
Which is quite strange for someone not very keen to listen to the Living Force.
I smile, for my shields are down and Obi-Wan has overheard my thoughts, and has commented on them with a snort.
It is so beautiful to be connected with him like this…I feel a sense of completion and belonging I have never known before.
Of course, I have shared bonds with my master and then my padawan, but those ties were different.
First of all, those bonds were not between equals. Secondly they were created for a precise task, for helping to teach and learn.
They were made to check and control, to restrain and locate, to reprimand and praise, and they were severed at the end of the training.
The bond I am going to create with Anakin will be of this kind, but the one I have with Obi-Wan is different.
It was not formed for any special reason and it will not be severed.
It just exists.
A gift of the Force, to both me and my son.
Coruscant, Jedi Temple, 3:5:13
Anakin has settled well in the Temple life and is progressing well in his studies. His tutors have told me he is very bright and inquisitive, and they believe he will soon be able to start attending normal classes.
I have begun teaching him some basic meditation techniques but, as I had fully predicted, he will need time to learn them. He is too full of energy to stay still for long periods, and he is much more interested in learning how to use the lightsabre than to learn how to meditate.
It is to be expected, I think. Most people believe the status of a Jedi – or a Sith – is defined by the fact he or she uses a lightsabre. They don't understand we use a 'sabre to defend ourselves from a blaster fire only because our communion with the Force gives us the speed and the insight to deflect the beams.
The concept of the Force is very difficult to explain to those who have never sensed it.
I wonder how Obi-Wan explained it to his wife, and if she is able to really grasp who and what her husband is.
I confess I am quite curious to meet my son's spouse. He has told me he married very young, when he was only twenty-one, a few months after becoming a knight. He met her on a transport taking him to Corellia and it was, as he said, "love at first sight".
Captain Shinko is a few years older than Obi-Wan, and seems to have a great, positive influence on him.
I look forward to meeting her, and thank her for the affection she gives to my son, for it is abundantly clear he has known little gentleness or kindness while growing up in the Sith Temple.
I remember the time when I considered Obi-Wan unfeeling because he called Anakin and Jar-Jar pathetic.
Now, after discovering the way he had been raised by the Sith, I am surprised he feels anything at all.
I believe it is almost a miracle they did not manage to completely kill the gentlest part of his being.
And it is a good thing his master is dead, for I don't really know what I would have done to him should I happen to meet him.
It is not a very Jedi-like consideration, but it is the truth.
