Disclaimer: Characters/factions/items that were not mentioned in the Star Wars franchise belong to me. I do not own any characters/factions/items that do belong to the Star Wars franchise (e.g. Anakin Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi).

A/N: BAM! TWO CHAPTERS IN ONE GO! ENJOU PEEPS!


Unorthodox: Part VII

Well, not really.

Anakin was giving him a hard time.

"You think your master could survive yours' worried ranting?" Barriss asked.

Ahsoka shrugged. "I'm not too worried though...Master Kenobi's...pretty patient."

"Is that why I was entrusted to him I wonder?" Barriss replied dryly.

She couldn't help it but Ahsoka giggled. "His humor is rubbing off on you though."

"Magnificent."

"Aww it's not that bad."

"No…" Barriss agreed, watching the two masters bicker it out. "I supposed not. It could have been Master Tyrannus, for all we know."

"Oh, yuck." Ahsoka winced.

"Precisely." Then Barriss spoke aloud of the sudden thought in her head. "Do you know what the other Acolytes call him? My master, I mean."

Ahsoka shrugged.

"Well...have you ever tried to pry into his Force signature?"

Ahsoka blinked. "Uhh, no...Master says that, it's best if we left it alone…"

"Has your Master ever described it to you?"

"Once." Ahsoka admitted after a moment. "He said...that there was a lot of pain and agony."

"Anything else?"

The Togruta hesitated. "Sadness...there was a lot of sadness in him."

Barriss nodded. "They called him the Sith of Sorrows…and no one knows why…"

•x•x•

"Kenobi..." Yoda started on his next question, ears drooping. "How is he?"

Sagacious' tendrils quivered slightly. Yoda could not tell if it was from anger or something else entirely. "Serpentus is...flourishing. He is no doubt, one of my most prestigious; I intend to make full use of him. I should thank you," another evil smile, "you did after all gave him to me."

"Hand over to you, we did not." Yoda sternly objected.

"Mmm yes...that is what he said as well. But you had left him on little Bandomeer, so open to the Force, so unguided, so untrained...be thankful it was not a Banite that had found him there."

"Regret, I will not feel. Mourn, I already have. A great Jedi he could have been."

"You sound attached."

"Miss him I do. But let go of him, I have." Yoda sounded almost wistful despite his declaration.

Sagacious could- dare she say it- empathise with this. "Yes...were it another world, another path...I would say he'd be the bane of my existence. And while what ifs will get us nowhere; the Sith of Sorrows is on your side still. It's easy for me to remember that."

At the name, Yoda perked up. "Sorrow, you say?"

Sagacious remembered that fateful day on Bandomeer. The child was newly thirteen standard years, and was left on the cold world by the Jedi it seemed. He was minding his own business, attending to his duties, the Living Force epically surrounding him. But then on that one night; the Unifying Force trapped him with it's fist. He had dropped everything he held, hands tearing at his hair and with a broken cry, fell to his side in what was the most agonising scene she had witnessed.

"He is strong with the Unifying Force, as he is with the Living." She deigned him an answer. "Ironic; the Living Force he had been forced to learn, and the Unifying Force he had been forced to take, choosing him as their own pet."

"What it was that made him sorrowful, you have not said."

"The visions!" He had cried, clawing at her cloaks. "Make them stop! Make them STOP!"

"I don't know." She replied truthfully, sending that to the Jedi through the Force. "He will not say of it."

"But I do know this." She gazed into the smaller Jedi's eyes, clouded with loss and lost; her own would reflect his. "He knows who the enemy is. And that is why, dear Master Jedi, we must not lose him."

The words Or we lose the whole galaxy hung in the air between them, a new sense of dread that mingled with the hope they had for their crumbling world.