Fingers scrabbled for the edge; fingers clawed and pressed deep as boots kicked for purchase. Shards of snow and ice cascaded down; a fingernail broke under pressure. Up, he had to get up and over. Up and over, he would be safe. Up and over, he could assure that his master was safe. Anakin swallowed hard and slithered over the edge, kicking and squirming though the snow and ice, to collapse on his stomach and do his best not to throw up.
Hurry! The Force screamed through him. The anchor was pulling free and Anakin fought back his panic. He couldn't lose his master, not now, not ever. He had lost his mother to his new life, he had lost the man who had taken him away from his old life to death – and he would not lose Obi-Wan, who guided him in this new life.
He and Obi-Wan had gotten stuck with each other to neither one's joy or satisfaction, or so he had thought; he had quickly come to learn the truth was entirely different. The two of them might not have chosen each other but they chose to make it work. Obi-Wan opened his heart to him with one look, and he with a hug.
He would not lose Obi-Wan. He needed his master ….
He turned to look over his shoulder, but the Force slammed through him demanding he turn his attention away from the edge and forward to the anchor.
Slipping – the anchor was slipping – Force, it was slipping! Anakin launched himself in a full body dive, threw himself across the anchor and jammed it into the snow with all the weight of his body upon it; he spat out a mouthful of snow. He was in time. He panted, a wide grin plastered in white spread across his face. In just a moment Obi-Wan would be beside him, rubbing his padawan's bruised stomach, an apologetic grin on his youthful face for the pain incurred on his behalf.
"C'mon, Master – I hurt myself for you!" he shouted as he twisted around and looked for Obi-Wan's bright eyes and red cheeks. "Master – please, you – you're coming, aren't you?"
Only the sigh of the wind flapping his cloak could be heard.
"M…master?" Anakin cried, but only the echo of his cry returned. Obi-Wan was saving his breath as he saved himself, Anakin reasoned, desperate to hold onto hope.
Obi-Wan was coming – had to be coming, any second now – first a hand, then the second, and then his master would be heaving himself over the edge and flopping onto his stomach. He would pant heavily, grin at Anakin, and clasp his arm as his eyes twinkled and he would make some ridiculous joke that was totally stupid and they would both laugh themselves silly from pure relief and he would throw snow in his master's face and Obi-Wan would frown at him and tell him they needed to get a move on and would offer him a hand up and then dump him in the snow and they'd have a snowball fight before moving on….
He wanted to laugh with Obi-Wan at his side, in wet and cold clothes, happy inside even if miserable outside.
Where was Obi-Wan?
He frowned.
He needed Obi-Wan.
Urgent need made him grasp onto the rope – and flinch, for the rope was slack and weightless… he opened his mouth to scream, "Obi-Wan!" before his mind turned the "O" into "Of course!" A slack line meant that his master was even now coming over the edge. Anakin slithered forward to fall into his arms – peered over the edge – and screamed.
Obi-Wan was gone – out of sight. Disappeared without a sound, died without a scream.
"Master!" he screamed into the depths – but there was no reply. Just silence. Obi-Wan was gone.
Anakin stared down into the crevasse with tears frozen on his cheeks and his master's last words like a warm hand on his cheek. "Keep going, Padawan and don't look back – keep going."
He huddled in a ball and cried, until there were no more tears left inside. He cried for his master and he cried for himself, alone once more.
Master will want me to wait for him. He doesn't like it when I go off without a word. Master is coming; Master always comes. No matter who leaves me, Master comes.
In all the chaos since Jedi first arrived in his life, Obi-Wan was the one constant that Anakin could count on. From family to strangers, from old routine to new, from old life with nothing but hope to a new life with plenty of hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi had been beside him. Master would be disappointed when he climbed over the edge and Anakin was not there, and he didn't want to disappoint his master. He would wait.
Anakin waited, and waited some more, for his master to show up. Obi-Wan would not leave him and he wouldn't leave his master. He would wait; however long it took.
Jedi don't die. Unbidden, tears came to his eyes – Qui-Gon Jinn had died. Jedi did die. Obi-Wan doesn't die! He scrubbed the tears away. Jedi went to the Force on a pillar of fire, not entombed in ice. That meant his master was alive – had to be alive – and if he waited long enough, Obi-Wan would show up.
Obi-Wan would not abandon him. He would not abandon his master.
And so he sat, and so he waited, arms tucked within his sleeves and his eyes searching – always searching, and his heart listening – always listening.
He shivered, and grew suddenly aware of the lateness of the hour. The lowering sun slanted across the snow in long fingers of gold, each ice crystal a diamond scattered in abandon. Free for the taking, a wonderful sight: fistfuls of gold and precious jewels of ice. Treasure beyond compare; a treasure bought too dear, for its greatest treasure was missing, stolen in ice and soon to be hidden by night.
Anakin would trade it all for his master – his soft laugh arriving with the wind, his mirth-filled eyes in the stars already twinkling faintly above.
Give me back my master! His shout went unheard and unanswered, and he shivered again, and realized he had to move, to do something besides sit. The temperature was dropping fast and night was vanquishing day. Below him, the forest already lay under night's shroud while above him peaks still blazed under the sun, fingers of light piercing the sky as if defying night's arrival.
"I'm not going far!" the padawan shouted to his master. He could not sit there and freeze, not with Obi-Wan coming for him – his master should not have to fight death and win only to find his padawan dead without a fight.
He had to trudge a ways to find the right snow drift – not too far, in case Obi-Wan showed up soon. He didn't want Obi-Wan to think he had left him, should he arrive and not find his padawan and think Anakin had deserted him. He dug into the drift as he had been taught – a sloping tunnel down to a pit and a raised platform within. The pit would catch the cold air; the shelter would keep the temperature near freezing.
Anakin labored without joy for he labored with memories of working side by side at his master's side when Obi-Wan had first taught him the joy of camping in snow. That had been fun, that time, scraping and digging in unison, Obi-Wan's unexpected fistful of snow down his neck and the snowball fight that ensued. That trip, that time, had shown him someone he hadn't known existed within the solemn young man. Naboo had been too recent, too raw, for them both. Time healed all wounds, but little time had then passed.
Smiles had more than touched Obi-Wan's lips; they had touched his eyes, that time. Eyes shone with delight, not just natural luminescence and the restrained chuckles turned to pure laughter.
Wary acceptance of an unwanted master turned, that trip, into full acceptance.
Anakin kneeled, feeling the cold seep into his knees and dampness soak his pant legs as he worked. It had been wise of his master to insist on bringing some metal pieces from the ship with them.
"We might have need of them; we can signal with them or dig with them. They're light enough, just be wary of the sharp edges," Obi-Wan had said, handing one to Anakin and keeping one for himself. Obi-Wan was right; he was learning that Obi-Wan was usually right. The metal made cutting into the snow much easier than using just his fingers, though even with the assistance, his knuckles were soon tender and bleeding, scraped raw by the cold and ice crystals.
He finished his shelter just before the dark could swallow him, but it chained him within his shelter on this moonless night.
It was never so dark on Coruscant; it brought back memories of sleepless nights on Tatooine where only the stars lighted the night – like here, out in the reaches of the galaxy - their light was faint and cold. Darkness lay over him like a smothering blanket, but a blanket that could not be thrown off.
He didn't remember it being so dark their night on Hoth, where Obi-Wan had taught him to walk in snow – up, kick in your toes; down, kick in your heels – demonstrating patiently, only to suddenly dance down the snow with wild abandon and a big shout of delight – "Come on, Padawan, it's easier to jam your heels in when you race down the slope."
He had hesitated – what if he landed face first – but when Obi-Wan stood below with his hands on his hips and a shake of his head, the challenge was met. Anakin ran down the mountain and plowed into his master, sending them both tumbling head over heels as Obi-Wan showed him how to self-arrest with elbows, fingers and feet.
Dripping wet and now cold, they warmed up by digging their snow cave, throwing their bags on the platform and changing into dry clothing before heating dinner. They sat where they could look outside, at the stars, as they ate, and Anakin sneaked a peak at his new master and saw such a look of contentment as he had never before seen.
"You're happy, Master," he stated, leaning against the young man's side as Obi-Wan brought the cloak around them both and wrapped an arm around him.
"For the first time since – then, yes, I think I am," he admitted. "Somehow, out here, I feel that Qui-Gon is here with us, in the Force. As much as I miss him," he blinked and Anakin knew he hid a tear, "yes, we go forward, you and I – all the rest is behind us. We might not have chosen each other, but Anakin - know you are truly my padawan."
The ever changeable eyes gazing at him were not the gray of remembered sorrow that had been so common in the last few weeks – but were blue, steady and clear. This chance to introduce his padawan to snow, to get away alone to cement bonds still forming, to connect back to life ever-continuing had done Obi-Wan good. It released most of the remaining grief that had been there between them, if Anakin reciprocated.
"As you are my master," he had whispered back, letting go of lingering resentment and unrealized dreams. This was his life now; this man his master, and it would be good, this life. A month or so of sorrow lay behind them, many years stretched ahead.
They had sat shoulder to shoulder in comfortable silence until Anakin's yawns had broken the night's peace and they had crawled into their bags and slept. He barely registered Obi-Wan getting up before sunrise, and laughed to himself for drinking much less or having more control so he didn't have to crawl out of bed. He stayed snuggled within warmth as he heard Obi-Wan beat his hands together for warmth until his master pulled him from his warm wrap with a cold hand on his face, to witness the birth of the new day. The sky: a palette painted in gold, red and pink and the snow at their feet the same. The boy from the desert had then realized that snow could be magic, if one treated it with respect, though it could easily bite the unwary or unlucky.
Chasms, whether of poisonous fangs or dangerous depths; jaws with teeth of ivory or caverns of stalactites and stalagmites: everywhere treachery abounded alongside beauty. Treat it all with respect and watch for the bite. Obi-Wan's words: he remembered them well.
Shaking off the unpleasant thought – no, Obi-Wan was not bitten by a draigon of ice –
Anakin turned his thoughts away from that time to this time, to focus as Obi-Wan would want.
Huddled in wet clothes, Anakin brought his numb hands awkwardly to his armpits to warm them. Cold, he was ever so cold and his teeth chattered. That first time that had happened, it had startled him, a desert dweller unused to such cold. Obi-Wan had teased him of being a musical prodigy, of prodigious skill with castanets and percussion.
Music to guide his master to him, he could hope.
When you can't handle it alone, remember you are not alone, you have the Force. Call on it – it will help you. Yes, Master, Anakin sniffled, hearing Obi-Wan's words echo through his mind. He would show his master that he truly listened to his lectures, or at least this one, so he would focus and call on the Force to warm him – and ask its help to warm Obi-Wan, too, out there alone and unsheltered.
"I'm waiting, Master – and Master Qui-Gon, if you are truly out there, find my master and send him back to me," he whispered just before he fell asleep, that night and the next.