Well, I haven't fallen behind yet, so here's another update!

Obi Wan nearly jumped out of his skin the next morning when a warm bundle stirred at his side. Reflexively he stilled, trying to figure out his bearings before making a plan of action. Slowly the memories came back to him, of the day before and the night before that. His arm was trapped underneath Zeno and there was no way to move without waking him.

Zeno's face was so boyish, like Anakin's. His hair, his eyes, it was so nostalgic and so dreadful at the same time. There was something strange about him, too. It wasn't visible, exactly, maybe it was something about his Force signature. For a second he couldn't believe that he had thought this man young.

Zeno's eyes sprung open, but much differently than Obi Wan's had. As he rose with a happy morning shout, Obi Wan noticed for the first time a large pendant swinging from Zeno's headband. It caught the sun with the same glow that fluttered through his hair and clung to his force signature. "Ki- I mean Zeno. You startled me!"

Zeno Looked just as startled for a moment, before recovering himself. "Well, the sprouts don't seem to be up quite yet," he joked, "so that means we have to find our own breakfast!"

They hunted for roots, this time together. Neither of them mentioned the fact, and Obi Wan was grateful.

There was a rustling in the bushes and Zeno sprang to investigate. The rabbit was badly wounded, and from the way it flopped at odd angles it was clear it wasn't going to make it. Obi Wan stepped forward purposefully and ignited his saber, bringing death with one swift jab. Zeno stared at the blazing blade in admiration.

Zeno collected the rabbit's corpse carefully. The lightsaber wound was cauterized, but it's previous injury dripped blood that ran down the side of his hand.

Zeno reached into his bag for a cloth to wrap their catch in. "Hold this, please, Mister," and he dumped the whole bloody mess to pool in Obi Wan's hands. Obi Wan automatically pressed his hands over the wound, trying to stem the flow as he had done so many times on children. Children who fought for peace from their elders or children who looked like men, it was all the same.

He didn't notice he was shaking until the bundle that used to be alive was gently removed from his hands, and he was being guided by an arm down to the crisp air and murmuring of the stream. He scrubbed and scrubbed his hands until they were red and raw from friction instead of blood, not noticing the tears silently streaming all down his face and into his beard until he looked for a dry scrap of his clothes to wipe his hands on and realized they weren't the only things that needed drying.

Zeno carefully washed his hands in the shining stream, clouds of blood tugged away by the current. "All things go to heaven. None of them are really gone, just not here. Death brings an end to their pain. But it is hard to understand, especially for one so young."

Zeno fished a tattered handkerchief out of seemingly nowhere, his clean hands leaving no stain on it as he passed it to Obi Wan. He smiled very softly at him. "I will clean the rabbit."

Obi Wan choked on a sob. It wasn't enough to have some kind of breakdown, now someone had to be understanding about it too. Now he was really going to fall to pieces. There hadn't been a single person, not since Cody, since Anakin… and he'd doomed them to a fate worse than death.

More sobs wrenched their way out of him, and the stream on his cheeks turned into a gentle rain as he tried to hide behind one small handkerchief.

"So young and loyal and sweet. You are not nearly as old as you pretend you are. If Zeno is yellow, then Mister is as blue as his sword. As blue as the spring."

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Back at the camp Zeno made short work of the rabbit, keeping up rapid conversation to distract Obi Wan.

"Kenobi is an odd name." Obi Wan didn't even bother to ask how he knew his name at this point. Zeno knew an astonishing number of things, whether or not he should know them. "Who is your family?"

"I don't really know. People are sent to my order very young and do not keep up contact with their families. I can barely remember my parents at all, I don't know their names. I had one brother who's name was Owen, I think. But to tell you the truth, I'm not sure whether I'm remembering it correctly."

Zeno smiled sunnily. "Not all family is family by birth, it is true. Zeno has three brothers, and none of us were born of the same parents."

Obi Wan nodded, remembering days playing in the Creche with Bant, Garen, and Reeft. And Quinlan, who had at least possibly survived it all. He couldn't bear to think for another moment about how the others had met their end, or he was going to burst into tears again. They're dead, they're safe, he told himself sternly, safe and gone and happy and well. Feemor too, Qui Gon's oldest trainee. Qui Gon had passed on long before any of them, he was probably with them now. They were doing better than the rest of the galaxy was at the moment. They had to be doing better than Xanatos and Dooku were in death. Obi Wan allowed himself a moment to wonder what had become of those two, so connected, so alike in so many ways, and eerily similar in their fall. Really, now he thought about it, the only living family he had were Yoda and Ashoka. And then there was Anakin… his thoughts slammed to a jerky halt.

He realized it had been a full minute since he had spoken. "Yes, it was something more like that," he admitted quietly.

Their talk soon turned to the blade now safely extinguished at his hip, and Zeno peppered him with questions about his training and preferred technique. Zeno seemed to have a vast and rather alarming depth of knowledge about swordsmanship for a small, sunshiney, young man (though Obi Wan wasn't so sure about that part anymore) who didn't even carry a weapon.

Soon talk had failed and demonstration was needed to keep up with the pace of their discussion. Obi Wan reverently ignited his blade, something so right about the hum of it in his hand again, and something so wrong about how out of the ordinary that rightness felt. He ran through a couple of short shielding maneuvers, and then even let himself run through a full kata as he absently listened to yet another form he had never heard of described animatedly by Zeno. It seemed that all the forms that Zeno spoke of were all attack, and Obi Wan wondered why Zeno hadn't been cut to pieces by now with his overly aggressive techniques.

He was starting to wonder more and more who this strange Force guide was. On Tatooine no one ever asked anyone else about their history. The less known the better. But Zeno had invited him to ask questions…

"Where is your family now? Why are you out here, of all places?" he finally blurted out.

Zeno nodded in acceptance. "They are passed on."

Obi Wan's mouth ran dry. Now he'd done it. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pried."

"It is quite all right. You deserve something of an explanation considering how things have turned out." He gestured to Obi Wan's lightsaber. "May I?"

Obi Wan hesitated, then thought all at once of Zeno's ancient and beautiful aura, his kind words and looks, his tact. If he could trust anyone now, in this fragile place between life and death, it was Zeno. "Of course, Ki."

"It is Ouryuu, actually."

Despite the solemnity of the moment, Obi Wan fought back a laugh. He couldn't think of a person in the galaxy who was less of a draigon. Ouryuu shot him a dirty look. "And it is time SOMEONE was told to respect their elders."

Ouryuu sunk into a ready stance.

"Once," he began, sweeping the blade toward heaven with a thrum, "there was a boy who could hear the voice of the Heavens. And he was no dragon." He finished the salute by bringing the hilt back in to rest against his solar plexus. "Until he received a calling from the Heavens, that is."

He went on to tell, accompanied by narrow strokes that spoke of fighting side by side with allies, about how his calling had granted him brothers, and a master. His grip hardened and a crocodile grin spread across his face as he elaborated about how inadequate he had felt, but how determined to try. He continued on to how his master and one by one his brothers had perished before him. The blade ran with serpentine flicks around his feet, leaving glowing trails in the dimming evening as he spoke of many years of wandering alone, then grew wider and wider with the flow of his steps as he told of how he sometimes felt a great distance between his brothers and him. He knew his own time had not come, and had no idea when it might be. He then spoke of a spark of a hope that remained, that just maybe his purpose was approaching, and perhaps, finally, his end. The blade once again turned upward and the hilt pulled back to his own chest. "Zeno is good at waiting," he finished simply, gazing up at the stars.

Obi Wan stood breathless, not only at the skill of the demonstration but at practically hearing his own life outlined in front of him and lived by someone else. "And what is your calling?" he whispered.

"Right now it is helping you pass on. You asked why Zeno was waiting in the middle of the woods by himself. Zeno was waiting for you."

"And how am I supposed to get ready to pass on? I have no ill will towards anyone, not even…" He stopped short, unable to even say the name out loud.

Zeno smiled evenly. "That is why."

It came like a slap to the face. He should have known. He had let himself become so broken that not even the Force wanted him without some kind of tune up. "Oh." He managed. Elegant. The Negotiator indeed.

Ouryuu reverently returned the quenched hilt, tracing a rough scar on Obi Wan's wrist and then squeezing his hand until he met Zeno's gaze. "Trust me, we all have our scars, seen and unseen. We don't deserve them, but they come anyway. Death brings healing, but healing isn't painless at all. Sometimes it is the most painful part. And that is why Zeno is here. Does Ao understand?"

Obi Wan's eyes may have been just a little misty again. "Thank you, Ouryuu."

And just like that Zeno's childish smile clicked on again. "Mister is very welcome."

Language notes on names, titles, and nicknames: (Note on note please tell me if I am wrong I am writing this according to my best understanding. I by no means speak or read Japanese.)

Ouryuu is a title from Akatsuki No Yona that means Yellow Dragon, the dragon that Zeno became the warrior of.

Ki is the first kanji in Ouryuu. It means yellow.

Ao means blue. In Old Japanese the color green was considered a shade of blue and not a separate color, so even today ao can hold the symbolism of youth or naivety that green does in English.