A/N: As promised, the second chapter. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan father/son fluff is never too much. It should be served in ample heaps of gooey goodness.
Chapter 2: Blizzard on Ilum
Ilum decides to welcome Obi-Wan's newly found lightsaber crystal to the surface with a hailstorm.
As though the planet regrets this decision and wishes to offer an olive branch as compensation, the storm is polite enough not to catch up with master and apprentice until they are almost to their ship.
Almost.
The ship is still a half-klick away when Qui-Gon suddenly tugs his panting apprentice to the side, half carrying the exhausted thirteen-year-old to the short bluff of ice sticking out of the otherwise flat ice-plains.
A harlequin fang flashes into existence as the Jedi master palms his lightsaber and carves a narrow opening into the ice, forming a small recess under a ragged, dripping overhang. Obi-Wan is bundled into the tiny alcove, the tall, lanky form of his master somehow folding into the limited space next to him.
Qui-Gon throws one wide cloak sleeve over his apprentice, tucking him under his elbow as a mother convor would cover her offspring with a wing.
The weather front hits like a wall of writhing spears; questing fingers of sleet and ice twist in front of their faces, invading the small hollow with frozen touches.
Tucked into the dark cocoon between his master's arm and side, Obi-Wan senses Qui-Gon breathe out, once. The Force tingles in response, and warms the air around them.
Obi-Wan shifts a bit and sticks his face out of a gap in the fabric, hair squashed into a russet mess. His short braid sticks straight out from behind one ear, like a tiny nub.
The corner of Qui-Gon's mouth twitches upwards. He reaches down and flicks the red-brown stub. "Stay awake, young one. It wouldn't do to fall asleep in these temperatures."
Obi-Wan dips his chin. "Yes, Master."
The white curtain of Ilum's breath billows in their faces, lining Qui-Gon's beard with ice-crystals and weaving silver threads into Obi-Wan's braid. The planet seems capricious in its moods, each inhale and exhale the lightest stir of snowflakes or the roar of sleet against pitted stone and ice. But throughout it all, the wind whispers the same word, over and over, like a slyly subtle Force-suggestion:
Sleep…
Obi-Wan snaps awake to a burning sensation on his cheekbone. For one bizarre moment he wonders if he has been struck; but the sharp sting gradually subsides into an ache, and then a gentle heat as a broad hand warms Obi-Wan's cheek.
Oh. It is not a strike, after all; only a concerned touch.
His brain seems strangely addled. Obi-Wan frowns up at the older Jedi and wonders what to call him. There is a word often used, beginning with Mern; but there is also another, one that rhymes with the previous epithet, the first letter of which is Forn.
Obi-Wan wrestles with the impossibly difficult question for the longest while, only to realise that the cold has crawled into his bones, wrapping traitorous tentacles around his mind.
And so, just as he could not differentiate ice from warmth a moment ago, he cannot remember what title to call…
The heavy weight across his shoulders suddenly shifts, and he is yanked into a circle of rough cream tunic and russet fabric. A calloused hand cups the back of his head and his face – his numb, nerveless face – is pressed into a warm tabard.
The Force murmurs agitatedly, and the heat suddenly intensifies. Obi-Wan struggles as the Force-summoned warmth burns new blood into his extremities in one agonising wave.
He blinks, eyelashes dripping melted ice crystals, and remembers.
"Ow," he comments.
A rumbling chuckle, reverberating through the homespun linen under his cheek. He glances up, wincing as his neck protests.
"Articulate as always." Qui-Gon's eyes are filled with amusement and…relief?
Obi-Wan stares. He cannot quite shake the feeling that he has missed something.
And then he feels the warm patch on top of his head shift – and then it dawns on him with growing mortification that the warm patch is in fact a palm, the weight across his back an arm, and the ridge that he rests his chin on a collarbone. And he is warm.
Qui-Gon Jinn is embracing him as though he were a child.
Obi-Wan's cheeks flush with embarrassment.
His master raises an eyebrow. "I warned you not to sleep, padawan."
"Y-y-yesss M-m-m–" The cold has solidified Obi-Wan's mouth. He tries to frown, but that too fails.
"Quiet."
"Y-y-ye–"
Qui-Gon's laugh is a low, rumbling echo in the tiny space. "I understand, little one. Now be still, and wait a little longer. The storm has almost passed."
Obi-Wan drops his head back onto his master's tabards. The older Jedi's fingers card through his hair, flicking aside spikes of frost.
Qui-Gon is silent for a moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is pitched softer in memory. "I do not know if you recall, Obi-Wan, but there was an incident ten years ago, midwinter, in one of the Temple gardens…"
The words drop into the song of the Force as Obi-Wan listens, and learns, and remembers.
The storm wears itself out after an indeterminate time, leaving the planet's surface freshly adorned with feathers of silver and white. The Jedi emerge from their small hollow, shake the ice off their cloaks, and continue their journey towards their ship, and the stars, and then home.
Ilum's breath walls up the little alcove in the ice with snow, as though to keep it untouched for eternity.
Okay, the bad news is this - something suddenly happened today that means I won't be able to update as quickly as I want to. However, as this fic has very short chapters, I should still be able to update soon. Thanks for reading, and reviews and faves are as always met with gratitude.
Next chapter: Funeral Rain
EDIT: I forgot to mention that you can find the incident Qui-Gon mentioned in my story "Midwinter Meeting". If you want MORE fluff, have a look at that.
