Lineage IX


Chapter 9

Temple Archivist Jocasta Nu was a power unto her own right, a force to be reckoned with. Her severely disciplined bun of alabaster hair was caught up behind her head and fixed in place with a supple pin, a dark length of haffa-wood thrust with merciless precision through the soft coils. It had fascinated Obi-Wan since he was three years old, and naïve enough to suppose the thing to serve a dual purpose as deadly weapon.

He was not afraid of her now, of course.

He was simply impeccably respectful in her presence.

Madame Nu's thin lips curled into a gracious smile when he made his request. "I am sorry, Padawan, but Master Dooku explicitly gave instructions that he is to be disturbed upon no account whatsoever. Besides, it is hardly proper for me to issue you into the lower levels. They are highly restricted."

She emphasized the last word slightly, a reminder of rank and duty. He dipped his head. "Yes, Madame, I understand. But I need to convey a message to him…. I don't suppose there is a droid, or an attendant, who might be sent?'

"This is a library, Padawan Kenobi, not a courier service."

Lips pressing together in frustration, Obi-Wan shifted tactics. "Master Dooku summoned me here... but he seems to have turned off his commlink. I do not wish to keep him waiting; he must have a task for me to complete. Perhaps there is research he wishes me to undertake?"

This was more to the Archivist's liking. "Hm," she sniffed. "I'll go speak with Yan in person." And she floated away, the stiff brocade of her floorlength tabards barely moving as she skimmed across the polished marble floor toward the far doors. Obi-Wan exhaled and wandered into the adjacent stacks, idly perusing the contents of the Galactic history section.

He levitated History of the Teth Dynasties Volume XXIII down from its high eyrie and ran a finger along the contents page, surveying the various chapter headings with a distinctly lackluster half-smile. He had to admit: even his ordinarily cherished avocations seemed no longer to hold their wonted charm.

Siri. He glanced at the chronometer: half past eighth hour. This had better not take too long…

Presently Jocasta Nu returned from her private conference with Dooku. The latter person's apprentice wondered –with a flicker of dark amusement – whether he beheld the only living being capable of giving the intimidating Sentinel a proper dressing down. Certainly Madame Nu's triumphant mincing gait was suggestive of a haughty rectitude and the recent discharge of authoritative vitriol.

"He wishes you to access the Dantooine Enclave database and cross-index any stored artifact documentation concerning the B'tmothi ancient cults," she informed the padawan, sweetly.

Oh, yes. Dooku was smarting, somewhere down in the forbidden sublevels. Obi-Wan's grin briefly broke from hiding and fled over his face, causing Madame Nu to lift a censorious brow.

He sobered instantly. "Thank you." He made a proper bow.

"I'll prepare a study alcove for you," she graciously offered, leading the way to a dark corner of the main levels.

The realization that he was going to be very late for his appointed rendezvous in the ancient rotunda chamber was almost enough to drive away the pleasure of Dooku's imagined chastisement. But there was no help for it now. He set diligently to work, determined to transmute the intervening hours into dim memory.

Siri.


His progress back across the swamp was an excruciating slog through endless stretches of reeking mud and the perpetual onslaught of bloodsucking skeeters. Qui-Gon pressed forward doggedly, centering on the present moment, on each weary drag of his boots through the viscous sludge underfoot.

And yet the future seemed to hang like a pestilent phantom before him, always just over the horizon of his present sojourn, a malicious and mocking voice echoing down the misty avenues of muck and drooping foliage. The dreadful vision of Tahl, of the arduous ascent up an unknown cliff, and most especially of his Padawan –

-former Padawan –

-remained emblazoned upon his inner eye like a searing afterimage, allowing him no respite from the nebulous anxiety they inspired. He cursed himself for a novice and a fool – here he was, over fifty years old, and assaulted by a vapid and indistinct bad feeling.

Focus on the present moment, where it belongs! he sternly chided himself.

But Master Yoda always said that we should be mindful of the future, his personal devil's advocate retorted. It sounded, as always, alarmingly similar to Obi-Wan, right down to the invisible smirk behind the neatly enunciated words. And Master Seva says that the present is only the shadow of the future. And Master Fu-Shee says that he who does not look ahead will end up on his behind. And Master –

And, he grouchily interrupted the eager tirade, Master Jinn says he whose tongue runs in the present will find his feet running many laps around the Temple perimeter in future.

Having thus triumphed over his imaginary interlocutor, he promptly slipped and fell into a sinkhole that lay directly in his path. Because he wasn't attending to the present moment.

With a hearty curse, he used the Force to lever himself free and stumbled his disgruntled way onward.


Obi-Wan uploaded the results of his lengthy researches onto a secure datachit and left it for Dooku at the Archives main desk, hoping his master would be pleased; he had discovered the existence of a B'tmothi scroll – not a holodoc, a real vellum based manuscript – that appeared to relate to the lost artifact in the dead moon's ancient tombs. A missing link. One unlikely to have been seized by whomever had stolen the holocron, for the Dantooine Enclave was still held by the Jedi Order, and was reputedly inviolable by intruders.

He thanked the sleepy staff member on duty and bolted for the Archives main exit, noting with a twist of chagrin that it was nearly midnight.

"Blast it!" Senior Padawan or not, he ran.


When it was done laughing at his expense, the Living Force did – at long last – provide a badly-needed solution.

Another of the archaic reptilian monsters that lurked beneath the swamp's surface roused itself from its habitual torpor enough to respond to his carefully nuanced mind-trick. It was a risky venture, but Qui-Gon assured himself that his chosen steed could be no more fractious than any one of his three apprentices, and boasted the further benefit of having no ability to issue impudent repartee.

At length, the creature turned its ponderous head in the direction of Nal Hutta, and the Jedi master, astride its massive neck, found himself skimming at a breathtaking pace across the bog's malodorous expanse, a cresting and scum laden wake rippling behind them.

He parted ways with his reluctant partner at the edge of the inhabited precinct and trudged to the outskirts of the spaceport, where the largest shipping freighters stood upon magnetic moorings. Cold, soaked to his bones, and famished, he surveyed the lean pickings Most were on a Coreward itinerary, or owned by piratical captains too ruffianly even for his taste; but one – of an oddly bulbous hull design, on the far side of the cracked platform - hailed from Toydaria and was slotted to make a lengthy delivery tour in the far-flung sector most proximate to Iego.

Qui-Gon Jinn had always favored the direct approach. He strode forward to the lowered ramps, where the ship's captain fluttered vexedly, held aloft by his protruding gas sack and propelled in a slow meandering path by his small, leathery wings. A rag tag mercenary crew of diverse species milled about the access hatches and ran cargo crates into the hold, obviously making final flight preparations.

"Excuse me." He nearly choked; the captain reeked of stale bacci , enough to confirm that he was a chain smoker.

"What? No handout, beggar. I gotta ship to get off the ground here," the hovering commandante snapped at him, oversized nasal appendage waggling irritably as he dismissed the tall man.

Beggar? Did he truly appear so destitute and desperate? Swallowing down his own flare of vexation, Qui-Gon adopted a humble tone. "Any need of an extra hand on board? I can do manual labor, and I'm looking for a way off-planet."

The Toydarian turned in midair and studied him over the curve of his mottled nose, eyes narrowing in frank appraisal. "No – and I don't pay well, either. Get lost."

A small knot of crew members came panting up from one of the adjoining spaceport buildings.

"You're late!" the diminutive captain roared at them. "And where's that knucklehead Kreebo?"

A murmuring and gesticulating conversation in Toydarian, and then –

"You!" the captain barked at the Jedi master, who had maintained a cautious distance, hood pulled over his face. "One of my idiot crew got his throat slit in a gaming parlour. You wanna berth? It pays nothing, so don't get excited."

"I accept."

"Who'd you kill?" the Toydarian jested. "Our next port is Uegga. Far enough out for you? Thought so. Shut up and get on board. You report to the galley, got it? And no fighting on board. I don't like the decks messy." He turned to spit expressively upon the tarmac and to bark orders at the rest of his crew.

Qui-Gon hurried up the ramp behind the others.


"You're late," Siri Tachi stamped, one hand resting on the curve of her hip, damp undertunic clinging softly to her torso.

He skidded to a halt upon the threshold, arrested by the mere glimpse of – "Siri."

"Well, good morning," she growled. "Nice of you to show up. I was getting bored."

"You waited," he pointed out, closing the distance between them until an electric hand's-width of tension rippled in the Force, in their suddenly deepening breaths.

"I wasn't waiting for you, Kenobi," Siri corrected him, tartly. "I was practicing kata so I can whip your sorry arse. You inconsiderate boor."

Adrenaline.. or something…. made his belly squirm and a melting heat spread at the base of his spine. "I was detained." He was also rapidly losing any semblance of control.

Fortunately, so was she. "I'll detain you," Siri all but panted.

Negotiate. Stall for time. Yes, that's what he should do. "It's been so long…. How are you?"

She drew herself up, a pillar of golden radiance in the Force, as soft and as hard-edged as a virgin sun rising. "I'm… fine."

Overstatement. She needed… something. He would give her anything. "Siri…"

She wanted his unconditional surrender first. She was like that. "Ben'ke. What's wrong? Tell me."

No, no, he never ever thought about this he never spoke about it – but he would give her anything, bare his soul first if she asked…. "I miss him," he blurted, like a pathetic youngling. "And Tahl. And you."

And there was more. "I'm to be a Shadow."

Siri frowned over this. "The hells you are, Kenobi."

"I am. And , Siri… Siri…"

No, no, no – he mustn't – but her hand was on his face, a calloused thumb playing along his chin, and it was her, and though he clenched his jaw it still trembled and he could not say aloud that which weighed most heavily upon him, the burning ember that scorched his conscience like an unfulfilled oath. I am to kill Syfo-Dyas. I will be his death. I am his death. I am death.

"No you aren't," Siri murmured, absolute certainty in her voice.

The tears welled up and poured over his barriers, falling one at a time onto her fingers. Siri didn't care. She wiped them away, and then she kissed them away and then –

He held on fast to the sure anchorline of her faith in him, the dark seas churning now on every side, rising like a black tide until every constellation but that of her unwavering belief in his light had been smothered. Siri was bedrock and sure foundation, the guiding voice of the Force compacted into a single warm presence, as though gross matter were here but lantern and vessel for the luminous inner spirit; voice and breath and beating heart but the corona of his only unfailing star.

She held him tightly, her arms containing the sobs within the circle of their private avowal. "You're so unhappy," she lamented.

Understatement. "I'm terrified."

"But that's not going to stop you." She knew him too well; indeed, her tightening embrace declared that she would have it no other way, that she burned with admiration for that within him which also terrified her – and then she threw caution to the winds, and opened the last dangerous abyss beneath their feet. "I love you."

They could so easily fall from this precarious balance, so easily plummet into bliss-

"Siri… there is nothing we can have – you know this – "

"I'm not keeping anything," she told him. "I'm only giving."

And that overturned all argument. She offered him everything, even the remembered pain of her own darkest moment, and she was at the same time terrified by the offer, yet undaunted by her own fear. "I love you , Siri." It was true. Even if duty and destiny ripped them apart again, possibly forever, he would not lie, not to her, not to the Force.

They could so easily fall, so easily surrender – the shroud of the future drew closer, closer, stifling – but now, in the present moment, they could simply soar away together, over the brink into bliss, into Light – giving and healing -

No no no - sparring, he desperately impressed upon her crumbling shields: they were here to spar, confound it all, not to –

"Kenobi. You are an adorable ass."

He hoped that was an overstatement.

And then Siri made the first strike, as she always did, as she always would .

Never one to back down from a direct challenge, he met her with a bold and open counterstrike. They dispensed with the formality of 'sabers and went straight to grappling, far too engaged in the contest to speak any further words. Siri's body was taut-soft-warm-smooth and the skin of her neck scented of some yarbai herbal soap, and her mouth tasted of a wine better than Dooku's finest most rarefied vintage. He was instantly drunk on it.

"Sparring," he mumbled minutes later, breathing as though they had already done three rounds and then some.

Siri untwisted her fingers from his hair and pushed against his chest, propelling him teasingly backward, backward, retreating…

"I would win anyway ," she growled. "Just surrender."

…into the wall.

"Siri!" he protested.

But she pressed herself up against him , and there was no escape and he was fairly certain that surrender should in no way, no Force-blessed manner, feel quite this pleasant or melting or urgent, and –

Siri. His hands strayed lower, sliding over the taut dip of her lower back, under her belt, lower, around the tantalizing double curves beneath, pulling her closer, upward–

She arched and gasped, hands tearing painfully at his hair again. "…oh. Oh…"

"You surrender," he whispered, not caring that she was biting, ouch ouch ouch for Force's sake –

-Never mind, it was all right and pain and loss were forgotten and balance was restored and they plummeted into one another's minds, and they were one thing, one soaring dive through inner heaven, shields down, souls mingling, double surrender, double victory, and this time – this time –

Somehow Siri's hands had burrowed beneath his tunic, hands skimming and stroking, her need cascading over the blurring line between their two psyches until he melted with it, shuddered at her touch, gasped in his turn … he reached into the Force for both of them – no no no there is peace serenity there is no - Siri's lips smooth soft perfect enticing mandrangea blossoms holy sweet –worship her, honor her, avatar of the Living Force, Siri's touch ohhh Force help me no don't - intertwining moans, soft tendrils of moist breath coiling, tightening, the Force singing, glorious, - resplendent, incandescent – and then -

"…Ahem."