Chapter Title: Tested
Series Title: Turn the Page
Chapter Summary: A test challenges a young Obi-Wan's ability to sense the Living Force.
They removed his blindfold.
To his front, a dense woodland forest.
Behind, a tropical rainforest.
One was real. One was a trick of the Force created by Master Yoda.
The rainforest was thick, crowded by vine-dense jungle trees. The air was sharp. Humid and sticky with a constant mist the rained down. The bright yellow snakes that hung from the trees coiled in spiral brilliance around and in contrast to the dark vines. They could kill with a single bite.
The woodland forest, it was just as deep in coverage, but instead of killer snakes clinging to thorny vines, the chorus song of flesh-eating insects filled the air. Insects that could easily remove a finger or hand if given the opportunity. This air was the opposite of the other; cold, crisp. Clear.
The rainforest was real. The woodland forest was real.
Yet one of them was not. One of them was a trick of the Force, created by Master Yoda. A test for every seventeen year old Jedi apprentice. The student had to choose the one that was truly real, enter into the realm and find the way to the other side. Make the incorrect choice and it was very possible that there would be no exit. Both realms offered actual danger. Force-manifested or not; sincere live threats to life and limb.
Qui-Gon had given him little guidance on the test directly. The master was not permitted to interfere, but in recent weeks, he'd been more than a little overbearing with lessons in the Living Force. Obi-Wan had taken that repetitiveness as a clue and a warning knowing that Qui-Gon never did anything without reason. If the apprentice was uncertain about the test, he was absolutely certain about his master.
Confident - but careful to not be overly so - he was ready. Step number one was toward the woodland forest. Observe with all senses. Use the Force, yes, but don't let what you feel belie what your human senses were saying.
Eyes closed, the boy breathed in and reached out. Several minutes inside the woodland before backing out. Then he did the same for the rainforest. He sensed no difference. No feeling leading him one way or the other. Yoda's powers were second to none and if the diminutive Jedi left clues behind - well, no. He would not have left any clues behind.
"You can do this, Kenobi. Focus on what's in front of you, not what could be. Don't lose track of the here and now to worry at the future. Qui-Gon, in his own cryptic way has told you all you need to know. If you listened to him and understood him, it will come. Focus. Think."
It was a battle. Fighting what his own mind was telling him to do - probably the wrong thing - and what he knew Qui-Gon would tell him. Lessons that had been hammered into his head since the age of thirteen. He hadn't always listed as he should when he was younger. Qui-Gon knew that. But his stubbornness lessened slightly as he grew from gangly teenager to young adult. Still, he and Qui-Gon did have a habit of clashing when their methods countered each other.
"But this isn't that. This isn't me obeying the Council and him going about his rogue ways. These were valuable lessons about the Living Force. Qui-Gon believes in it so strongly and he wishes for me the same. I try, but don't always see it. Maybe I have enough. He's instilled enough into my brain that has stuck... it's there. It has to be there. Relax, feel, focus..."
Pep talking himself, he wasn't certain if it was helping or hurting while wavering between woodland forest and rainforest. From the latter, a jungle snake descended from an enormous swamp-gum tree. Yellow diamond shapes outlined in black, the head was as large as Obi-Wan's hand, the length of the creature was longer than the boy was tall. He recognized it immediately and knew it was both constrictor and poisonous.
"All right, we'll avoid you," he said to the creature as it descend and then launched itself toward him. A sense of movement just before the snake struck, Obi-Wan avoided the strike. Others followed, trying hard to corner the apprentice, but he kept ahead by watching the slight glow generating around them. That glow... the Living Force at work. Obi-Wan smiled. The glow shone brighter.
"So this is what it's like. What Qui-Gon sees with so little effort. What he believes in so strongly. The snakes are connected to the trees, connected to the earth. I can see it, but I can't see it all. That entire connection is there, but how it all works together... No, wait." He shook his head. "Stop, Kenobi. You're getting distracted. Yes, this is what you should think about, but not at the expense of moment right in front of you. Are these jungle snakes real? Is this forest real?"
He departed the rainforest and returned to the woodland forest. The misty rain had increased in intensity before he exited the rainforest. It had pelted him as he left, quickly drenching his short hair and tunic as he then stepped into the woodland area. A long-legged black-thorn spider dropped from above. A bright red fire scorpion crawled from below. They both landed on him and his first instinct was to swat at them, squish them before they could cause injury. He'd been bitten by a poisonous spider during a mission last year. Weeks of recovery followed to cope with the weakness and pain caused by the tiniest of creatures when it's venom wreaked havoc in his human bloodstream. It had bitten in self defense after he'd swatted at it. Lesson learned. He may be stubborn when it came to some of Qui-Gon's teachings, but animals with potentially deadly bites, it only took one mistake.
There was no swatting this time. Instead, a gentle hand movement directed the spider elsewhere. The scorpion too received a careful redirection, disengaging from his pants leg and returning to the woodland floor. Obi-Wan breathed a sigh of relief and refocused.
The spider was real. The snake was real. Weren't they? He'd touched them both, or they'd touched him. That meant something, but did it mean the same thing?
"I need to go beyond the spiders and snakes. The answer isn't with them. Or is it? Or... no, no. Don't overthink yourself, Kenobi. Focus. Here. Now. Look and feel what is right in front of you. Don't miss what's there even if it's not there yet. Okay, that makes no sense. Ugh. Stop. Stop. Okay. I can do this."
As he was busy talking himself into confusion, he noticed something and stepped back into the rainforest. The humidity had increased. Sweat dampened his face. His tunic stuck to his skin. It was horribly uncomfortable.
The snake activity had also increased. One of them wrapping his leg and attempting to pull him off balance. Obi-Wan Forced it away, pushing it a little further than just off his foot. The move was intentional, he wanted to see if... Yes, there it was. The tail end of the snake slithered just beyond the boundaries of the rainforest. The snake was truly real. If it had not been, it wouldn't have been able to pass outside the realm.
From there, the other clues began appearing. The glow around the snakes. It hadn't been the same with the spider or the scorpion. But it was here, in the rainforest. And not only with the snakes. The exposed roots of the trees. The enormous sheltering green leaves. Even the sounds. The sounds that at first were only usual jungle sounds, the tones were somehow different now. More solid? Clearer? He hadn't recalled Qui-Gon mentioning sounds within the Living Force, but he assumed it was all part of it. It had to be, right? Although... he began second guessing again.
"Master Yoda is brilliant and powerful. This could still be his doing. The rainforest. He could have implanted... no, no. That's not right. The Living Force can't be feigned. Qui-Gon told me that, didn't he? That I would know when I felt it. It would be clear and obvious and part of me? He said that, yes. This is what all his training was about in the last two weeks. There was no way he could demonstrate physically how it would feel, but I would know. There would be a calmness beyond what I saw. Did I feel that? A calmness? Yes, I think so. Calm isn't something I'm known for, maybe that's why Qui-Gon kept harping on that word. Calm. Thinking back... yes, he'd said it about a thousand times. Qui-Gon does nothing without reason. I'm not a calm person. If I felt that calm..."
With a moment of deep breathing to focus ahead, Obi-Wan saw his path. Now he had to get to the other side of the forest without being poisoned or paralyzed by a killer snake.
"Focus, one step, one stride at a time. Qui-Gon would tell me to not feel the end, but to feel the steps that lead to the end. I can do that."
Slowly, step by step, he began his way through the tropical wilderness. The humidity. The density. The rain. He'd definitely need a hot shower when this was all said and done. The snakes moved, he moved. They jumped, he leapt out of the way. His pace increased. Their slithering increased. They were following him. Stalking him. They didn't care that this was a test. They were real. The rainforest was their home. He was an intruder.
The calmness had served him well, but now his anxieties began taking hold and flight was quickly becoming more important than fight.
"We've run before. Master Qui-Gon and I. When there was no other way. This is probably one of those times. Surely, if I get eaten by a snake, I'll never hear the end of it."
A smaller snake grabbed his ankle and that ended the discussion he was having with himself. He ran. The little snake didn't let go. In fact, it's fangs came out and Obi-Wan could feel them sliding determinedly into his lower leg through his boot top as he hurried to find the exit. Shaking the leg, striding forward, even a Force jump didn't dissuade the thing to let go. So, he just kept running, a limp presenting itself in his stride, but there was a light at the end of this tunnel. Or rather a break in the forest ahead. That had to be it. The end. Exit. Whatever. He could see forms there. Ahead. People. One in particular. Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan ran and leaped faster until one last lunge.
The brightness of the sun about knocked him over as he plowed into his master's chest. Heaving breaths when Qui-Gon held him up. Obi-Wan shook his left leg violently.
"Master, it. Won't. Let. Go. It bit me." The boy panted, exhausted.
"There's a healer here, Padawan. We were ready for you. Come here and sit."
Qui-Gon moved him a few feet from the rainforest, sitting not far from a ground-speeder. He positioned him to sit on the back lift, keeping one arm around him to stay vertical. Obi-Wan felt hands on his leg, his ankle. A healer, one he didn't recognize, was working to disconnect the pesky little snake, remove the boot and treat the wound. As this happened, the boy started feeling sickly and promptly vomited off to the side.
"The poison works quickly." The healer said. "But the venom in these younger creatures doesn't have the aggressiveness of the more mature snakes. You'll feel ill for a few days, nothing more. More like a flu than anything."
Obi-Wan vomited again. "Oh, ill. A flu. And I'm throwing up already. Should be fun." He turned a pitiful glance toward Qui-Gon, hoping to see that he'd been successful. "Master?"
"Yoda was impressed, Padawan. You surprised him."
There was something. Yoda had expected him to fail. He hadn't.
"I listened to you. I mean, to your lessons. The ones that you rammed into my head recently. I surprised you too?"
"No. You did not. Obi-Wan, I knew this was inside you. It's why I push
you as I do. The ability to feel when you cannot see. I want you to understand the Living Force. It's power. It's magic. It's calmness. You felt all of that. I know you did. Otherwise, we'd not be having this discussion."
"I did... the calm. It was soothing, even if I still don't completely understand it. For a few minutes though... and now... now I feel horrible." Another heave to the side. "Master, h-how did that snake poison work so fast? What's even the point of this test, to threaten students with death? Dying to prove us worthy. I don't understand the test... Master..."
Qui-Gon sighed, offering his student the truth. "The poison is not deadly, even with the mature snakes. Neither the spider nor scorpion held lethal venom. There was no true danger of death during the test."
The apprentice frowned in confusion. No danger... "But... Master... the Council said..."
"I know what they said."
"It's all a lie?"
"It is a test. They are challenging your reactions; how much you rely on the Force versus your own human instincts. Panic versus focus. Concentration versus wild guessing. If it means anything, as I said, Yoda was honestly surprised that you succeeded. He was pleased that you did."
The boy leaned toward Qui-Gon's shoulder trying quell another vomiting episode. The poison spreading fast and furious. He trusted the healer's word that this reaction wouldn't last long. Obi-Wan was exhausted from the test. And now this...
"Master, none of this makes sense. Why..."
"I've argued against it for years. The Council knows my feelings on it, regardless of the apprentice being tested. And I've not been permitted to discuss it. No one is. That goes for you as well."
Obi-Wan vomited once more.
"Once you are functional again, of course."
"S'why you fight against them so much. The Council."
"One of a list of reasons."
Qui-Gon caught him as he began falling toward the ground. The healer injecting him with two hypo's. "He'll sleep", he healer said. A rolling sensation began floating through his body. The drugs working almost as rapidly as the snake venom.
"I did well?" Obi-Wan's sentence was blurred as he fought against the combined fatigue of the test, the poison and the drugs. Before he faded out, he sought what he always did from Qui-Gon - since before he had been taken officially as an apprentice - even when the man was sometimes oblivious to it.
Praise. He sought praise from the man he looked to as mentor, teacher... family.
Holding Obi-Wan upright as the healers moved in to take the boy, Qui-Gon pursed his lips in a gentle smile. "You did well, Obi-Wan."
"Finally... proud of me?"
"Finally? No. Always. Even when you struggle. The healers are going to take you now. You'll rest for a few days. You'll recover. Then we'll be off to a new mission."
"M'kay. Rest now..."
"Yes. Rest now. I'll see you when you wake. Padawan, you did well today."
Obi-Wan's clenched face relaxed with those few words. He'd passed an impossible test, having surprised even the ancient Master Yoda. Most importantly though, Qui-Gon was proud of him.
And it was that last part... that final part... it made every second of this day worth it.
—-
...turn the page...