In All The World
Summary: The story of how Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi tamed each other, from Naboo to Anakin's early days at the Temple. Slow-building Anakin/Obi-Wan friendship.
Chapter Ten: Early Lessons
Somewhere in the middle of the night, Anakin had fallen asleep on his feet. Obi-Wan had caught the boy as he swayed, and gently laid him down in a quiet corner of the chamber. He hesitated for a moment, and then he pulled off his robe, draping it over the boy like a blanket.
Padmé came over. "Shall I ask for an escort to take him to his room?" she asked, quietly. "He must be exhausted."
Obi-Wan thought about it. "It's fine, m'lady," he said, keeping his voice down. "I think Anakin would not forgive us if we made the decision for him."
Padmé nodded, ruefully. "I used to insist I could stay up to watch the fireworks on Edrin's Day. They prepare all year, and then set them off late at night all at once in a beautiful display. Once, I snuck out of bed and climbed the roof. I fell asleep there before the fireworks even began." She gave a soft laugh. "My parents were cross with me. But not as cross as I was with myself for falling asleep!" Her gaze softened as she glanced at Anakin. "He certainly looks like he could use his rest."
"It has been a trying week, m'lady," Obi-Wan agreed, neutrally.
They spoke no further.
'Luminous beings we are, not this crude matter.' He'd quoted Master Yoda at Anakin—thoughtlessly. It was a truth all Jedi knew; that they were beings of the Force, rather than of matter. There was a seirta, a Jedi teaching tale that Qui-Gon had told him, once. There were three Jedi, watching a robe hanging on the washing-line, billowing out with the wind. The first Jedi, an apprentice, said, "Look—the robe is moving!" He was admonished by his Master, a Knight, who said, "It is not the robe that is moving. It is the wind that moves, and the robe with it." A Jedi Master passing by shook her head and admonished both of them. "It is not the robe," she said, "Or the wind that moves. It is the Force that moves, and your mind within it."
The mind, the self, Obi-Wan thought, was an illusion. Or so orthdox Jedi doctrine went. Immersed in the Force, the boundaries between the Jedi Master and the Force dissolved. This was the wisdom encapsulated in Yoda's words: to look beyond the crude matter that made up the living, breathing Qui-Gon Jinn he had known—matter that, or so they'd been taught in their astrophysics classes—had once come from a star, and was, in a sense, returning to the fires.
For all of that, he did not feel any better as the flames consumed his Master's body.
He had to move on, Obi-Wan thought. Life demanded it. There were missions and duties and responsibilities—stretching ahead into the far future. His Master had placed a young life in his hands. That was not the sort of thing to be taken lightly. He gazed over at where Anakin slept. In sleep, he looked even younger than he was. Even Piell's words echoed in his head, again. "…He's a handful and a half; exuberant as anything, but whatever the case, he's not going to be like those disciplined little hellions you find at the Temple. He's wild, through and through, he won't laugh at some things, and in some ways, you'll find that being a slave and having only his mother for company's going to make him more grown-up than you'd expect. You're going to have to deal with all of that, with nothing else to lean on. In some ways, he'll be very different from you as a Padawan, and you're going to have to accept that."
Could he accept that?
He had to, Obi-Wan thought, because he'd promised Qui-Gon; because it was the last thing his dying Master had heard before he'd passed from this world and into the Force. That meant letting go; that meant stepping out from under the weight of his pain, although it came back again and again, dragging at him like the undertow on a stark coast, and threatened to overwhelm him. Anakin deserved better. He'd led a hard life, for one so young. He deserved a Master who could do even half as well by him as Qui-Gon had done with Obi-Wan.
Watching the dancing flames of Qui-Gon's pyre was final and irrevocable; it was the reminder that his Master was never coming back. Ever.
He knew that. He was no stranger to death, not as a Jedi. He remembered the way Tahl's arm dangled loosely around Qui-Gon's shoulder, the way his Master broke down and sobbed as a child. He remembered the men and women and children he had seen, killed, on so many worlds, so many missions.
It always came back to Qui-Gon. How different the finality of death seemed, when it came to those you loved. He had loved and respected his Master. That was why he struggled with his grief, now. He thought back to the moment of pellucid clarity, in the middle of the vigil he'd sat by his Master's body in the Tariyalean Room. Grief didn't end by an act of will; you soldiered past it, and eased out from under it, day by day. You had to keep choosing to go on, to keep accepting it, until one day the pain diminished and left you, if not completely.
He bowed his head.
The flames flickered and danced and eloganted; perhaps from the tears in his eyes.
Anakin stirred, still sleepy. The weight of something foreign startled him—it was thick and rough and heavy, and shifted with his movements. There was something uncomfortable in it, too, poking at him.
He felt around muzzily, trying to open his eyes.
Light was pouring in through the access door of the balcony; golden and bright. He figured it was probably the afternoon. He'd slept for a while, then.
The foreign weight on him was a large Jedi robe that someone had left behind. He managed to find the hard, plastic thing that was jabbing him in one of the robe's inner pockets. It was a data-stick, Anakin discovered. He glanced at it curiously, wondering what was on it. He supposed he could check, if he could find his datapad. But it didn't seem right. He knew whose this was: it was Obi-Wan's robe, and therefore Obi-Wan's data-stick. It seemed, almost, as though he had known that all along, just as he'd realised he was back in his room, listening to the comfortable murmur of the water, but hadn't registered it until now, with the music of the water a soothing sound in the background that he'd unconsciously ignored.
Obi-Wan himself was sprawled—surprisingly inelegantly—in one of the chairs, booted feet resting on the floor. His eyes were shut; he'd fallen asleep, Anakin realised. He wondered if Obi-Wan was cold. Certainly, although he'd tried to adjust the temperature regulator in his room, he'd been disappointed to find they weren't quite working.
He slipped off the bed, picked up the robe, and padded quietly over to where Obi-Wan slept. Carefully, he threw the robe over the slumbering Jedi, and tugged it just-so, the way Shmi had always done for him at night.
Obi-Wan must've been a light sleeper. He startled awake even as Anakin was turning on his heel. "What—oh. Anakin," he said, slipping easily from surprise to a greeting. "Good morning." He glanced out the balcony door and amended the greeting. "Good afternoon, rather."
"How do you do that?" Anakin wanted to know.
"Do what?"
"Wake up so fast," he said. "Mum always used to say it'd take a bucket of sand to get me up on a good day."
Obi-Wan drew himself up, shook out his robe in a neat, elegant motion, and began to shrug into it. He checked his chrono. "Late afternoon," he said, shaking his head. "I suppose at least it isn't evening yet. Shall we get something to eat?"
He wanted to ask about what he'd missed—he remembered Obi-Wan telling him he would be a Jedi, he'd make sure of it, and a long evening watching the flames of Qui-Gon's funeral pyre but little else. Before he could find the words though, Anakin's stomach betrayed him with a loud growl.
Obi-Wan smiled. The gesture seemed to take some of the severity out of his expression. "It sounds like that should be our first step, then."
"Wizard!" Anakin enthused. The thought of food cheered him up, even as he wrestled with how to ask Obi-Wan about what was going on. The man had been somewhat friendly, yes, but Anakin couldn't help but feel that a gap existed between them, all the same, and he wasn't sure how to bridge it, much less how to ask Obi-Wan if he was sure when he said he'd train Anakin.
He hadn't seen any sign of it, after all, and Obi-Wan hadn't mentioned his training since—he's just woken up, he reminded himself. Maybe Obi-Wan had other things on his mind.
Watto was good at promising things, Anakin thought. He wasn't so good at delivering what he'd sometimes promised in a moment when he got carried away.
He looked down at his hands. It was cruel, he thought, to accuse Obi-Wan of doing the same thing. But first, Qui-Gon had taken him away from Tatooine, promising to train him as a Jedi; then he had been denied, and brought to Naboo, still following Qui-Gon, who was now dead, and he still didn't know what the Jedi wanted of him.
"Anakin?"
He looked up at Obi-Wan.
"What is it?" Obi-Wan asked.
There it was, Anakin thought. All he had to do was to ask. What was the worst Obi-Wan could do? He could decide he didn't want to train Anakin after all, he reminded himself. He could discard Anakin, leave him floundering in this galaxy with no means of returning to Tatooine and freeing Shmi, with no way of making something of himself. But Chancellor Palpatine had offered him help, a small voice in his head reminded him. And he seemed all right, even nice for a man of his age and stature…
Obi-Wan was regarding him, expectantly.
Anakin said, haltingly, "Did you mean what you said, last night?" He didn't want that, he realised, didn't want Obi-Wan to say that he hadn't meant it, that he didn't want Anakin. He wanted the man's regard, he realised, and he didn't even know why.
Obi-Wan blinked. "Meant what?" he said, and then, as Anakin's heart was about to sink, understanding flashed in his gaze. "Oh. That. Yes, of course I meant it, Anakin."
He hadn't known how tense he was—how he'd drawn himself all taut like one of the bantha-hide ropes they used to fetch water from wells—until he felt something in him, all clenched and tight like a fist, relax. "Then how come we aren't training me yet?" he demanded, and winced in the next moment at how whiny he sounded.
Obi-Wan shook his head lightly. "If you are going to be a Jedi," he informed Anakin, "Which you are, of course, you're going to have to learn to be patient." He sighed. "That being said, the Council had only very recently given me permission to train you—and of course, you are correct: I owe you an apology for not having informed you sooner. I have been remiss there."
"S'alright," Anakin mumbled. He felt a prick of guilt as Obi-Wan bowed his head in a brief apologetic gesture.
"In any case," Obi-Wan said, "I imagine we have priorities. Food first, and then we'll have to ease you into training. The victory celebrations are scheduled for two days after the funeral—" his mouth twitched into a slight expression of distaste—at what, Anakin could not tell—"We'll have to make sure you have something appropriate to your new status as my apprentice to wear. And then there is the matter of protecting the Queen."
"What's wrong?" Anakin wanted to know. It was clear Obi-Wan was unhappy about something, and it struck him that perhaps Obi-Wan was unhappy about being saddled with an apprentice. Was that what was bothering him?
Obi-Wan said, "Ordinarily, you would have been trained at the Temple." Anakin ducked his head, feeling a flush of heat in his cheeks. It wasn't his fault that he hadn't been, he thought, stubbornly. Being a slave wasn't something he was going to apologise for. Obi-Wan took one look at him and said, "I don't mean this is a bad thing, Anakin. I just mean that I am uneasy about not being able to immediately bring you to the Temple to begin your training. We still have to remain here for the victory celebrations, and all this while, I'm tasked with protecting Queen Amidala and investigating the assassination attempt on her. It is not the most ideal of conditions under which to have to teach an untrained apprentice."
"You think it's too dangerous?"
Obi-Wan nodded, without hesitation. "Anakin, you almost died. And so did I," he said, simply. "A Jedi faces danger every day, out there in the galaxy. I knew this. So did Qui-Gon. But the Temple does not simply throw young Jedi out on dangerous missions unless it has some level of basic confidence in their abilities. You will be a good Jedi, I'm sure of it. But right now, you aren't ready for danger, and as the person charged with your safety, I'm worried for you."
"I'm not afraid," Anakin replied, raising his chin defiantly.
Obi-Wan ran a hand through his hair. "I know you aren't," he said. "But that's not the point. I'm not doubting your courage, Anakin. I'm trying to see how we should handle this matter."
"Are you going to send me away?"
Obi-Wan arched an eyebrow. "Do you think I should?"
Anakin bit his lip. "I don't want to go," he muttered. He didn't like the idea of being packed off onto a ship with Gallia or the other Jedi and then taken to the Temple while Obi-Wan remained on Naboo with Padmé. Would Obi-Wan even remember to come back for him? How long would Obi-Wan remain on Naboo? "I want to stay with you."
"All right, then," Obi-Wan said, crisply. "That settles the matter. I will, however, expect you to stay close by me, or by a palace guard. If another attempt is made on the Queen's life and I am occupied, please find safety elsewhere." He reached out, and hesitated; instead, he drew his hand sharply back. "We'll go get something to eat, and then I'll see if the palace tailors can't produce something for you that resembles what Jedi wear. And then I'm going to talk to some of our suspects. I would prefer it if you stayed within sight."
"But say nothing?"
Obi-Wan's mouth twitched in a half-smile. "Oh, no," he murmured. "I rather imagine that you might put them off their guard, or discover things I cannot."
Anakin was puzzled. Watto had often instructed him to remain silent. Slaves were neither seen nor heard, he knew. A good slave simply faded into the background, like an astromech droid. He'd been disciplined on occasion for his curiosity when a customer brought in some exotic circuit he'd never before seen.
"How?"
"People tend to underestimate children," Obi-Wan replied. "They won't be as on their guard around you. They will, in fact, make allowances for you where they would not for an adult."
"Like if I got bored and poked around their house a bit?" Anakin asked, shrewdly.
"Possibly," Obi-Wan said.
The palace tailor was a short man, aided by a battered droid that he insisted had served the kings and queens of Naboo for over a century, and that there was no sense in replacing it as it had developed a feel for the job by now.
Obi-Wan was not so sure about that, but he deferred to the man's expertise as he eyed Obi-Wan's clothing and laid swatches of fabric against it, trying to find something that would approximately match what the Jedi wore in spirit, if not in feel.
Finally, the tailor grunted as he found something that might match. The material was somewhat finer than what the Jedi usually wore, but they had to make allowances, Obi-Wan thought.
"That boy need a cloak as well?"
Obi-Wan studied his charge. Anakin was standing as still as he could, though he was gazing in rapt attention at the droid that was taking his measurements. Of course Anakin would be fascinated by the droid, Obi-Wan thought. It was a model he'd never encountered before, and he remembered the boy's fascination with mechanical things.
"No," he replied. "He'll get one when we return to the Temple."
The tailor nodded. "Boy hasn't hit the growing age yet," he said, "But I can put a bit of allowance into his clothing, to let him grow into it, anyway."
Obi-Wan considered it. On one hand, it made little sense when Anakin could easily receive standard-issue clothing from the Temple. On the other hand, it seemed wasteful to have the tailor make Jedi clothes for Anakin that he would only wear for several days.
"All right," he said. "Do it, please."
The tailor began folding up the other swatches of fabric and returning them to their proper places on his shelves. "Anyhow, his current clothing is filthy," he said, matter-of-factly. "It should really be turned into rags at this point, but—"
"No!"
That was Anakin, who must have overheard the tailor's comment.
"Anakin," Obi-Wan said, warning in his voice.
"S'all I have," Anakin muttered. He glanced pleadingly at Obi-Wan. "Can't I, you know…?"
"Anakin," Obi-Wan said. "Do you know what an 'attachment' is?"
Anakin frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Obi-Wan glanced at the tailor, who nodded and prudently withdrew, muttering that he had to see to putting in work on Anakin's clothes and that they were lucky he was doing them a favour and delaying his other orders in order to make sure Anakin had something suitable to wear.
He beckoned. Reluctantly, Anakin came over. Obi-Wan sat, folding his legs beneath him, and gestured for Anakin to sit down on the floor of the shop as well.
"Anakin," he said. "Perhaps I should have explained this to you earlier. The Jedi frown on attachment."
"What is an attachment?"
How did he explain the core and the foundation of Jedi philosophy to a nine year old boy? Obi-Wan cast his mind back to the classes he'd had in the Temple and the lessons he'd had with Qui-Gon.
"Let us begin from the beginning, then," he said, at last. "Although this is a poor place for your first lesson."
Anakin grinned. "Could've fooled me," he said. It struck Obi-Wan, then, that Anakin was mercurial: he angered swiftly, but the anger gave way just as quickly to bouts of cheer, good humour, and even generosity.
You must remember this, he told himself. It was his task to know his Padawan.
"The Jedi say that there is just one thing," Obi-Wan told him. "And that is the Force."
"You talked about it a lot."
Obi-Wan nodded. "We do. What was it Qui-Gon told you about the Force?"
Anakin frowned, but came up with the answer a moment later. "That it was the Force that gave a Jedi his power."
"That is true," Obi-Wan said, cautiously. "Or at least, that is one aspect of it. To the Jedi, the Force is a substance—an energy field, if you will—that is created by all living things. It surrounds us, it penetrates us, and it binds the galaxy together."
"What about droids?" Anakin wanted to know. "They're not living things. Are they part of the Force as well?"
Obi-Wan said, "The Force is created by all living things; in the same way, all living things subsist within the Force." He tapped at Anakin's arm. "We often say, 'We are luminous beings, not this crude matter.' The saying is meant to remind you that separateness, that self is an illusion."
Anakin's expression grew thoroughly confused. "All right," he said, even though Obi-Wan knew he wasn't following.
"Don't worry too much about the details," Obi-Wan said. "Your instructors at the Temple will go over the issues with you in greater depth over the coming years. Just know that it is a problem: if all life participates in and is nothing more than a part of the Force, then what is physical matter? What about droids, which are, after all, made of physical matter? Do these participate in the Force?" He looked at Anakin. "I am sorry to have to tell you that we do not have satisfactory answers to this question. But if you like, I can give you some readings on the matter when we're back at the Temple."
"All…right…" Anakin said, with more uncertainty.
Obi-Wan returned to the matter at hand. "You encountered the Sith Lord on Tatooine. How did he make you feel?"
Anakin screwed up his face in concentration, trying to remember. "Afraid," he said at last. "It felt like…like I was walking on fire, and the fire was coming after me. Like he hated me, but at the same time, I was nothing more than a bug he was gonna squash."
Obi-Wan nodded. "The Sith are users of what we call the Dark Side of the Force."
"So do the Jedi use the Light Side, then?"
Obi-Wan frowned. "We don't refer to it as the 'Light Side', per se," he replied, cautiously. "To the Jedi, there is only one Force, indivisible. As Master Kvaseth often puts it, 'The Force does not take sides, so how can it have sides?' Nonetheless, we speak of aspects of the Force—which are not something you need to worry about right now."
"Details?"
Obi-Wan matched his smile. "Yes. Quite. Do you remember the fountain in the courtyard?"
"You said the Force was like a stream," Anakin said. "That if we were angry, or afraid, or if we…if we hated, then the stream would become dirty."
Obi-Wan nodded. "'Clouded', rather. But essentially correct. The Dark Side, Anakin, doesn't exist independently. There is only the Force." He tapped his chest. "The darkness comes from here. When you are angry, when you are afraid, or when you hate, you taint the Force in you—and the part of the Force that you are. You taint the bits of the Force you come in contact with. In a way, you corrupt it. That is what the Dark Side is. It's a corruption of the Force."
Anakin frowned. "So the Dark Side is bad?"
"Very," Obi-Wan confirmed. "That's why we don't say we use the 'Light Side'. Words have power, Anakin, and words guide our concepts."
"Okay," Anakin said, dubiously.
"We use the Force. And because a Jedi's strength emerges from the Force, when he is guided by the Force, when he is at peace and one with the Force, rather than when he is contaminating the Force with his own desires, anger is toxic to a Jedi."
"And…what does that have to do with attachments?"
"Everything is impermanent, Anakin," Obi-Wan said. "That is the truth the Jedi embrace. Was there a toy you loved when you were younger?"
"Mr Scruffy," Anakin said, eventually. He looked at Obi-Wan, his eyes challenging the older man to laugh. Obi-Wan did not. "He was a bantha. Mum made him for me, from scrap. He was beautiful—the other kids didn't have anything like him."
"What happened to him?"
"Forzy took him away," Anakin said. "I should've been stronger—I'd have stopped him. He beat me up, too. I could've gotten away but I didn't want to get away without Mr Scruffy."
Obi-Wan sighed. "It's not about becoming stronger and beating up the people who might do so to us, Anakin. These things are attachments. They're the desire to grasp, to claim for our own. To possess. To want. To control. To the Jedi, our answer to these is non-attachment. It doesn't mean not loving the things in our life. But it means we need to learn to love them without having to cling to them." He looked at Anakin. "Anakin, your mother did a terribly, terribly selfless thing. She let Qui-Gon take you to give you a better life, while she remained behind—"
"But she had to!" Anakin yelled, stricken. "Watto wouldn't let her go, and I hate him!"
His outburst lingered. Obi-Wan said nothing.
"I'm not sorry," Anakin added.
Obi-Wan let out a frustrated breath. "Anakin," he said, eventually. "Your mother could have refused to let you go. She could have prevailed upon Qui-Gon to let you remain with her, and Qui-Gon would never have called in the debt. Watto would have been delighted. Instead, she loved you—but she chose to let you go. And that is love without attachment, Anakin. That is what the Jedi strive for. Because attachment breeds anger. It breeds resentment. It breeds unhappiness."
"And anger is bad, I get it," Anakin mumbled.
"No," Obi-Wan said. "You don't. At least, not yet. And possession is a form of attachment. A Jedi must be willing to let belongings pass out of his life."
"Then why do you use his lightsaber?" Anakin challenged.
Obi-Wan met his gaze. "I should not," he admitted. "And Jedi philosophy often prevaricates where it should not. We consider our lightsabers extensions of ourselves and permit ourselves these. But we still attempt to live as simply as possible, without personal possessions. More importantly, Anakin, possession isn't about material things."
He pinched the material of Anakin's clothing and tugged lightly at it.
"Possession is a state of mind. And it is especially this state which Jedi attempt to avoid."
Anakin sighed and was silent for a time. Obi-Wan let him be.
"Why is being a Jedi so hard?"
"I don't know," Obi-Wan said, honestly. "But I think that if the Jedi path were easy, it would not be worth walking."
"There are many things that aren't easy," Anakin said. "But I'd bet they aren't worth it." He looked at Obi-Wan, almost defiantly. "Like being a slave."
"No," Obi-Wan agreed. "They aren't." He added, a heartbeat later, "These never are."
Captain Panaka looked at him warily when Obi-Wan requested the contact details of the Five. "The palace doesn't keep this kind of information," he said at last. "The Queen won't have it."
"I know," Obi-Wan said. He cast a glance back; there would be time later to instruct Anakin in Jedi proprierity, he thought. As it was, the boy wore a borrowed tunic and trousers, having grudgingly relenquished the clothing he'd brought with him from Tatooine to the palace tailor. He was fidgeting and doing a poor job of hiding his restlessness. "But I figured you would know where I could obtain such information."
Captain Panaka narrowed his eyes. "You investigating them, then?" he asked, bluntly.
Obi-Wan nodded. "I have been instructed to open an investigation into the Five," he said.
Captain Panaka's eyes glinted with interest. "I see," he replied. "Good. They've had it coming, Jedi Kenobi."
"Do you really consider them to be capable of such a deed?"
Captain Panaka shrugged. "I'm a security officer, Kenobi. My job is to think about every possible way someone could kill my Queen and to make it as impossible for them to do so as I can. I don't ask why: kings and queens of Naboo have been killed before, and even if I succeed in keeping her alive, she won't be the last to have such attempts made on her. Maybe she's wrong about the Five being involved. But even if she is, it's not my job to investigate and find out who did it and why. I just need to keep her alive. Every day she's still breathing is a success for me, as far as I'm concerned."
"In your personal opinion, then."
Captain Panaka went still as he considered the question. "Perhaps," he admitted, grudgingly. "The Five have always been wealthy and powerful, and with that comes the desire to have more power. King Arjuna had tried to put a stop to that. And they killed him."
"And your Queen is a danger to them?"
The captain of palace security said, "They could've foreseen a threat to them. The Queen has never been particularly friendly towards the Five in her political speeches." He shrugged, helplessly. "I can't really say."
"I understand," Obi-Wan said. "Thank you for your time, Captain. Would you know how I could obtain information on the Five?"
Captain Panaka nodded crisply. "Go into the city," he said. "The central administrative office is along Karthana Boulevard, and they track the residence addresses of all the citizens of Naboo from the local registration offices."
Obi-Wan nodded appreciatively. "Thank you, Captain."
"Thank me by finding the womprat that did it," Captain Panaka instructed him. "I want to string his worthless hide from the highest tower of the palace."
Anakin trudged along behind Obi-Wan. The Jedi walked with an easy grace, and on occasion, he would walk quickly enough, almost leaving Anakin behind, until Anakin had to jog to keep up with him. He'd noticed and apologised the first two times it'd happened.
Staying on Naboo with Obi-Wan had seemed a wizard idea at first. He didn't like the idea of being shipped off conveniently to the Temple and forgotten about, but he hadn't thought that following Obi-Wan around as his apprentice would involve so much talking and waiting either.
He itched to do something. He wasn't really the sort of person who could sit around and just wait, the way Obi-Wan seemed to be able to do so. And his new clothes were uncomfortable, Anakin decided. They were too soft, with none of the rough textures he'd familiarised himself with from home.
(Shmi deserved a fine life with good food and soft clothes, part of him admonished.)
He busied himself gawking at Theed. Coruscant had easily been the biggest city he'd ever seen, but he'd stayed in the Jedi Temple most of the time and hadn't been able to explore it. Theed, on the other hand, he imagined, was smaller than Coruscant, and yet…
There were so many people. They thronged the streets pockmarked with scorch blasts and concave impact marks from the plasma cannons of the Gungans and the artillery of the Trade Federation, laughing, talking, and generally being busy. A good amount of the rubble had been cleared away, but still, Anakin had never seen so many people in one place in his entire life.
Many of them seemed to be chiefly focused on their own business: men and women dressed in the colourful Naboo clothing who strode quickly towards their destinations. Others stopped and gawked at the many things on sale in the marketplace. Stallholders called out, advertising their wares. It reminded him of Mos Espa, but Mos Espa was where you went because of the profitable trade with the moisture farmers and the smugglers and the freighter pilots, and none of them carried things like bolts of brightly coloured cloth, which would have turned grey with dust very quickly on Tatooine.
And the fruit: he thought he'd caught sight of a fruit-seller, peddling all sorts of garish fruit, oranges included. He might've stopped to take a closer look, but he almost lost Obi-Wan, until a hand closed firmly around his upper arm and led him on.
"Don't get lost," Obi-Wan said, firmly, into his ear. "If you do, I'll have a great deal of difficulty finding you."
"All right," Anakin said, a little put out. He'd wanted to see more of the Theed marketplace, but he understood what Obi-Wan meant: they were busy doing Jedi things and investigating who it was who might've tried to kill Padmé. He could get behind that.
Even if it was awfully, awfully boring.
Locating the central administrative office proved to be far easier than Obi-Wan had feared. They had chosen to walk down from the palace rather than commissioning a landspeeder from the palace garage. It would be good for Anakin, Obi-Wan thought. He could tell that the boy was fairly bursting with repressed energy, and perhaps a long, leisurely walk might do both of them good.
Anakin, at least, seemed to be reacting quite well to the change of scenery, after having been cooped up in the palace for the past few days.
In addition, most of the Naboo were especially helpful when stopped and gave clear directions. Obi-Wan estimated that it had only taken them about fifteen minutes of walking to locate the unremarkable building among the rows of residences and shophouses.
A sign above the wooden doors proclaimed that the building was the CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF NABOO in both Basic and Naboo script, and Obi-Wan took that to be confirmation enough. He pushed open the heavy door and gestured for Anakin to precede him.
The office itself was an air-conditioned space with a reception and a waiting area of many empty seats. A few of the Naboo were themselves waiting. Another sign instructed visitors to report to the reception counter first while a large screen hanging from the ceiling indicated which queue number was currently being handled.
Obi-Wan crossed over to the reception desk. "Good afternoon," he said. "I'd like to speak to someone regarding the contact details of the—"
"You'll have to take a queue number first, sir," said the protocol droid at the counter.
Obi-Wan said, "It is a matter of some—"
"No queue number, no queries," the protocol droid said. "The regulations are quite firm in that regard, citizen."
Obi-Wan nodded gracefully. "I'd like to take a queue number, then."
"Over there," the protocol droid said, in that same, far-too-cheery voice. It gestured to a terminal leaning against the far wall. Without further ado, Obi-Wan turned and headed for the terminal.
"I hate droids," he muttered. "They typically lack imagination."
"You could've told him you were a Jedi," Anakin whispered.
"I could've," Obi-Wan confirmed, accessing the terminal and scrolling down the list of options he was presented with. "But would it have changed the droid's mind?"
Anakin frowned. "Well," he said. "I s'pose I could reprogram it for you. If you want me to."
"Thank you, but no." Obi-Wan selected the option of an appointment with a bureau official and the machine spat out his queue ticket. He compared the printed number with the one currently on the screen and blanched. "Let this be a lesson to you, Anakin. The wheels of bureaucracy grind exceedingly slow, and even we Jedi have to respect them."
Anakin groaned as they found a pair of empty seats and settled in to wait. "What's the point of being Jedi if no one cares?" he asked. "I mean, you've got those lightsabers, and the Force, but you can't do anything."
"The Jedi do not like to speak in terms of power," Obi-Wan said. "Because power implies control, and dominion, and a Jedi seeks to neither control nor dominate—"
"Power is power," Anakin pointed out. "You have it even if you don't want to say it." Watto had never needed to talk about the power he had over Anakin and Shmi. The fact he had it was obvious and implicit in how he'd always asserted it.
"Your focus determines your reality," Obi-Wan continued, unfazed. "For the Jedi, to think in terms of power is to entertain a dangerous thought—"
"Why do you spend so much time being afraid, then?"
There was silence, even amidst the cheerful, relaxing music being played in the waiting room. Most of the Naboo pretended to be engaged in their holomagazines or broadsheets.
He reminded himself that he was feeling frustration, that it was normal. He breathed it out, feeling the tight feeling in his muscles ease itself; moving out of his being with his exhalation. "We are not afraid," Obi-Wan said, firmly. "You confuse fear with wariness, Anakin. You can be cautious of fire because you know fire will hurt you. But fear does not always accompany caution."
"All right," Anakin said. "But I still think you have power. You're just not acknowledging it."
"What would acknowledging it constitute?" Obi-Wan asked.
Now that he was put on the spot, Anakin hedged. "Well, I guess you could walk up to that droid and threaten to cut it down with your lightsaber if it didn't get you an appointment with a bureau official right now."
Obi-Wan stood up and strode over to the protocol droid.
"Sir," the droid said, "I must insist you wait your turn—"
The snap-hiss of Qui-Gon's lightsaber cut the droid off, and the Naboo in the administrative office gave up all pretence of feigning disinterest. The bright green glow of Qui-Gon's lightsaber—now Obi-Wan's—was eye-catching.
"My apprentice," Obi-Wan said, "Thinks I should cut you down with my lightsaber if you do not get me an appointment with a bureau official who can deal with my queries in an appropriate manner this instant."
The protocol droid said, "Sir, regulations are regulations. I am afraid I cannot help but insist that you wait your turn. An official will attend to you shortly."
"Did you hear that, Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked, making sure his voice carried to the boy in the corner. "What do you suggest I do now? Cut down the droid as I have said I would?"
Anakin was silent.
"Assume," Obi-Wan said, feinting and moving the lightsaber from high-guard to a deliberately-slow cut that circled far above the droid's head. "Assume that I follow through with my threat and I cut this droid down. Do you think an official would see me then? What about—" he mimed a stab, now. "If I broke the terminal at their reception?"
Anakin said, "I guess they'd have to talk to you then."
Obi-Wan flicked the lightsaber off, abruptly. "Thank you for your patience," he told the protocol droid, as he sheathed the weapon. "That is the problem with power and threats, Anakin. I'll allow you to think in terms of power for the time being. Let us say, then, that a person with power is in a position to issue threats. But threats unbacked by force and the willingness to use them are empty. The protocol droid knows I would not in fact cut it down. Hence, it has no reason to fear my threat. The use of threats and force is a commitment, Padawan. It puts you on a course of action from which you can no longer deflect yourself, for fear of appearing weak or rendering your threats useless."
"So you never threaten, then?"
"People react to force in different ways," Obi-Wan assented. "On occasion, they may react in the manner you want. On occasion, this may only further encourage them to act against you. Knowing when to apply force and when not to is an important part of being a Jedi. If I had struck down that droid, I would most likely have had to continue demolishing the reception desk and the waiting room, on pain of appearing weak and foolish when no official came out. I would, in fact, have almost certainly destroyed the good name of the Jedi Order and damaged any good relations our work on Naboo might have established between the Naboo and the Order." He patted the lightsaber that hung at his side. "Understand this, Anakin. A lightsaber is not a weapon. It is a responsibility. The first and most important lesson of the lightsaber you will ever have to master is when to use it and when not to use it."
He looked around at the silent waiting room. "My apologies," he said aloud. "My apprentice and I were just having a philosophical discussion."
They looked torn between shock, bemusement, confusion, and fear. Some of them had begun inching in the direction of the door or of the intercom.
"Master Jedi?"
Obi-Wan turned. An official dressed in a formal suit stood at the entrance of the corridor leading from the waiting room. Her dark hair was tightly tied up in a bun and her eyes gleamed with amusement. "Your pedagogy leaves much to be desired, but your point has been taken into consideration," she said. "If you will follow me, the Office will attend to your request now."
Smiling and gesturing for a gaping Anakin to follow him, Obi-Wan inclined his head in thanks, and moved after the official.
A/N: Sorry to all for the time taken for the next installment. Thesis continues to suck away my life. Also, one comment is that while I know fanon (and I suppose, to some extent, everything after the OT) tends to talk about the 'Light Side' as the necessary opposite to the Dark Side, the OT doesn't actually use that term. It's the Force, and the Dark Side of the Force. So in this fic, I've chosen to offer a drastically different take: there is no Light Side, and the Jedi don't like to use the concept of the 'Light Side'. The presence of Darkness does not imply Light; neither does it immediately entail that the Force is a binary. The point of failure is in fact regarding the Force to be two opposing binaries: 'the Light Side' versus 'the Dark Side', 'us versus them'. It sheds a new light on Obi-Wan's self-referentially paradoxical claim that "Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes." Because to the Sith, the Force must be so fragmented and divided. To a Jedi, it is not.
Some might feel that I've already been too charitable to the Jedi by allowing Obi-Wan to concede that love without attachment is acceptable, especially if Episode 1 Obi-Wan is a beacon of orthodoxy. I concede the point. In this fic, I'm generally depicting Obi-Wan as having a strongly orthodox streak, but as Qui-Gon's student (who we all know is the ultimate maverick.) I'm drawing on the quasi-canon of Qui-Gon being a proponent of the Living Force, a doctrine which emphasises (as I see it) compassion (a kind of love, in Anakin's eyes, but he's not quite wrong about that), and benevolence, and a strong dose of mettā. His influence on Obi-Wan has nudged Obi-Wan to have a healthy amount of respect for other living beings (despite Obi-Wan's current fastidiousness); in either case, he's at least aware that love without attachment is a theoretical possibility, even if he's not thinking about the kind of love Anakin will later fall in!
Last, Anakin. In some areas of philosophy and in international relations, there's a huge clash between two rough positions (this is me leaving out lots of details). One position is approximately Hobbesian (realism, in IR); it thinks in terms of power, and it regards all beings as: A. fundamentally self-interested, B. always unsatiably interested in accumulating power. (Actually, there's a third assumption in IR realism which involves one of anarchy. But this isn't entirely germane so I'll leave it out.) For Hobbes, the only solution is for everyone to surrender power and to put it in the hands of a sovereign. (Sounds familiar? See: Episode 2 Anakin.) On the other hand, some positions think that it isn't only about power. Sure, from a third-person perspective (and sometimes not even that!), it looks like people crave power and that's all there is to it, but we're people too. And from our own experience, we know people are governed by norms. What are norms? They're rules that guide behaviour. "Don't beat people. Don't kill. Don't steal." Etcetera. Anakin's experience hasn't predisposed him towards the idea of norms. Sure, Shmi's instilled a strong sense of values in him. ("I'm proud of you, you've brought hope to those who have none." Think about his offering of shelter, and his telling Shmi that she's always said that the worst thing is that people don't help other people.) But the world he's looking at is a world in which: A. he does not have power, B. other people have power and do whatever they please, most often at the expense of the powerless, which, very importantly, includes himself, his mum, and the other slaves-in short, he's looking at a world which by and large doesn't seem to follow any sorts of behaviour-guiding norms.
So Anakin is starting as a boy who is rather mature, and in some ways, rather cynical, and yet rather naive, with a wide exuberant streak. He largely thinks about power, and yet he wants things to be different: like how Shmi taught him, and like how he's expected the Jedi to be. A lot of his development will be on the conflict between how he thinks the world is like and how everyone else tells him the world is like.
Cheers,
-Ammaren