Fortify yourselves, dear readers. I'm sorry, this one's sad.
In his dreams, night after night, Obi Wan saw the throne room of Mandalore in red, black and yellow.
The yellow of the Sith's eyes. The yellow of his son's hair. Korkie, grown to adolescence, standing before a Sith.
The red and black face. A black 'saber. Sneering, yellowing teeth. And Korkie, still watching him, transfixed.
Beneath them, a figure on the floor. Yellow hair. A blackened wound in her gut. No blood, no red blood. Obi Wan had seen this fatal, bloodless wound before. Satine dead on the floor.
"My father will kill you."
Korkie's shaking voice, then the laughter of the Sith.
"Your father is not strong enough."
A black-gloved hand pulling Korkie by the wrist towards him.
"With me you will learn strength."
Dinner was empty of the joy of their spontaneous meeting the previous day. Obi Wan entered the apartment looking tense and under-slept. The affection that had been startled out of Satine – stars, what a happier life she would live, if she simply never thought about anything – was replaced now by anticipation and speculation, rehearsed lines of speech and Obi Wan's voice running through her mind.
He needs real training, Satine.
Korkie slept in his travel cot in the corner of the hotel suite. Her miracle, her shining light. She couldn't lose him.
The subject didn't take long to come up. No doubt it weighed heavily on Obi Wan's mind too.
"Korkie's powers, Satine…" he began gently. "They're developing rapidly, as you know."
He was speaking to her in his diplomat's voice. Satine wondered whether it was too soon to be mad at him.
"Indeed," she agreed curtly. "They were my lightbulbs."
"It will be dangerous, Satine, if he does not learn to control his anger. For him and for you."
Satine made a small noise of assent.
"And control of such power is not something easily learned. Korkie needs time, and close attention. I know you never wanted it, Satine, but…"
She raised a brow. I dare you, Jetii.
"I've meditated upon it, Satine. It wouldn't have to be a true Jedi apprenticeship. Just a short time, while he's young, while he can still be-"
"Brainwashed?" she asked innocently.
Obi Wan scowled ferociously.
"While he can still be trained, Satine, before he goes down any dangerous path."
"Your Padawan began training at nine years old."
"That's another matter, with a whole host of its own problems," Obi Wan muttered, before appealing to her anew. "Listen to me, Satine. I could appeal to the Council, explain everything."
"And then get ejected from the Order?"
"I don't think they'd do that."
Satine snorted her derision.
"The Order barely approved Anakin's training. I don't see why they would extend their famous Jedi compassion to Korkie."
"They will understand, Satine, how dangerous it is not to train him. There are Sith out there, Satine, I see visions of them-"
"In the rest of the galaxy, Obi Wan, we call that psychosis."
Obi Wan ignored her.
"He doesn't have to stay," he pressed."But he needs to be there, for a time."
They were talking without listening. Staring at without seeing each other. Satine took a steadying breath.
"No."
Obi Wan glowered at her, briefly lost for words. Satine could not help but smirk.
"I've told you that already, Obi Wan. You shouldn't be surprised."
"You told me that when he was born, Satine," Obi Wan reasoned. "But you've seen him grow into his powers and now you need to reconsider."
"No."
"Satine," he warned, frustration leaking back into his voice.
"Obi Wan," Satine mimicked, leaning across the table towards him. "I said no."
Obi Wan swept his food to the side in agitation.
"You've not seen what I've seen, Satine. You haven't seen a Force-sensitive being misuse their power before. I've seen it and I do not want our son-"
"How could you suggest that our child would become that?" Satine demanded, pushing her own food aside. "How dare you think that I would let him?"
She shook her head resolutely and folded her arms.
"My parents raised me to never harm a living soul and I will do the same for my son. I asked for your help because I thought you might wish to help me, Obi Wan, not because I need you to help me. And I certainly do not need you to give our son away to a cult of loveless wizard-soldiers and ruin for own career in the process."
She rose to her feet and strode towards the kitchenette. She needed some space. She needed some water. She refilled her glass and brought it to her lips and spoke again only once she had felt the heat fade from her cheeks.
"Any questions?"
Obi Wan's jaw was clenched tightly.
"If you just listened, Satine, you-"
Satine realised then, in his broken speech, exactly how angry he was.
"You don't know the Jedi. You don't know the people who raised me. They're good people, Satine."
"Didn't Qui Gon attempt to abandon your training?"
It was a low blow. Obi Wan swore his frustration.
"Kriff's sake, Satine, this isn't about Qui Gon. The creche Masters at the Temple are patient and wise and good and they will help him. You're refusing this offer without any idea of what you are refusing. You can't be so karking ignorant about a decision this important."
Satine shrugged and waited patiently.
"I don't see how you could possibly be so…"
Obi Wan grimaced away this thought and found another.
"Can't you comprehend, Satine, that there are good people in that Temple who would care for him? Don't you know better than this bullshit Mando axiom by which all Jedi are evil?"
He threw his hands open in desperation.
"For star's sakes, Satine, you loved me once, you saw some good-"
And Satine could hold her tongue no more. The words ripped out of her.
"I loved you once?" she demanded.
She barked out a breath of deranged laughter.
"Who's karking ignorant now, Jetii?"
In the horrible silence that following, Korkie began to wail in a steady crescendo. Obi Wan's face slackened.
"Satine-"
"Loving you has made me miserable, Obi Wan," Satine spat out, voice low, the press of tears at her eyes. "And if I could make it go away I would."
Grimacing now, as the tears streamed down her face, Satine crossed the room and collected her crying son from his cot.
"Korkie is the only good thing that has come out of loving you, Obi Wan. And you're not taking him from me."
Obi Wan folded in his chair, leaning his elbows upon the table and his head in his hands. Satine gently bounced their son in her arms, soothing him back to sleep. When Obi Wan finally lifted his chin to speak with her, there was a glistening of tears on his face. And the tabloids could say what they wanted about Satine's icy composure but her heart could have torn in two in that moment. She had seen tears on his face after the bombing of Enceri and when he had held Korkie for the first time. But she had never made him cry.
"He's my son too, Satine."
Barely, Satine could have spat at him. But his voice was so heavy. She had already won and she didn't feel a victor.
"I know I'm not there with him like you are but I love him and that's why I want him to be safe."
Satine bit the inside of her cheek, all the fire gone from her. She cradled the child's head against her shoulder.
"He will be safe with me, Obi Wan."
Obi Wan nodded wearily and rose to his feet, gathering his cloak. Satine thought he might leave without another word, but he paused in the doorway.
"All these phases of friendship and falling out, Satine…"
He gestured helplessly at their still sniffling child.
"It's not good for him."
And it broke her heart but it was true.
"It's not good for any of us," Satine agreed, voice tremulous. "It needs to get better, Obi Wan. It needs to get better or maybe we're better off just…"
Giving up. She couldn't say those words but didn't need to. Obi Wan's face paled. He clamped his jaw and swallowed grimly.
"I'll send you some readings with some meditation techniques that will help him. Please call me if you want any help. But in the meantime…"
He donned his cloak slowly and deliberately, as though learning the skill anew.
"I will take some time and space to meditate on all of this. I'll let you know when my next block of leave becomes available. And we can decide what… what's best for him."
Satine nodded, unable to speak.
Do not cry, Satine. Do not cry. Do not cry.
"I'll keep him safe," she repeated, the only words she could find.
Obi Wan gave a final nod and left. Satine cried.
"Do you think he's depressed?"
Bant lifted her gaze from her friend's mutilated shoulder and into her hazel gaze. There was no need for clarification.
"He wouldn't meet many criteria, soldiering on like he does," Bant muttered, wiping again with another pad of gauze. "But I know what you mean."
"He's sad," Siri professed.
"Yeah."
It was a truth as clear and ugly as the jagged wound between them. Bant briefly tried to bring the edges of it together, before sighing and pushing aside her untouched tray of sutures.
"It's so like you to come to me with an unopposable wound, Siri," Bant grumbled, in tired humour. "Couldn't you have done something that required a less expensive dressing?"
"No need to make it pretty. I'll take a scar."
"What sort of Healer would I be if I left you with a scar like this?" Bant chided, beginning to apply a bacta ointment.
Siri hissed her displeasure at the stinging pain.
"He's not sleeping. Is that on the criteria?"
Bant raised her brows.
"Since when wasn't he sleeping?"
"Don't know. But when I arrived back from mission a couple hours ago he was up. Sitting in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, moping all by himself."
Bant sighed with new understanding.
"Which is why you only came to me now, having soaked through a whole bandage and your cloak besides."
There was no true malice in her reprimand. Bant wouldn't have expected any less of their most ferociously loyal friend.
"He didn't tell me anything," Siri muttered with disappointment, scratching at a spot of blood on her trousers. "But at least he let me sit with him."
"You're a good friend, Siri."
Siri shrugged and grimaced her disagreement.
"You are," Bant emphasised firmly. "It's just not going to be an easy fix, whatever he's going through. He's not been the same since Qui Gon died."
Siri watched with morbid curiosity as Bant affixed the first layer of mesh dressing over the wound.
"I reckon it was before that," she mused, nose wrinkling in faint disgust as she watched the delicate antibacterial fibres absorb into her flesh. "I reckon he's not been the same since Mandalore."
Bant snorted.
"It wasn't that serious, was it?"
Siri shrugged and scratched harder at the dried blood.
"Might have been. Maybe not. It's just my feeling."
Bant frowned. It wasn't something she'd considered; she'd found it easy to blame it all on Qui Gon, after all that had happened.
"You think he's-"
"If you're with him the next time she and that baby appear on the Net," Siri mused, a wry grimace on her face, "You'll feel it."
Her breath hitched briefly in pain as Bant applied the next layer of dressing. She gritted the next words out through clenched teeth.
"The tragic idiot still loves her."
"Padawan Skywalker!"
Garen ambushed him on his way from Intergalactic Politics to Navigation, placing a hand on his shoulder in the crowded hallway and steering him into an alcove. He squatted down before Anakin and looked at him pleadingly.
"What's going on with your Master?"
"Dunno."
It was very wrong for a Padawan to lie to a Jedi Master. Hopefully, Anakin's words could at least be in part considered as the truth; he didn't know exactly why it had been so long since Satine had called.
"You agree he's miserable?" Garen prompted.
Without doubt. He had stopped singing in the 'fresher and didn't seem to notice when Anakin wore unironed robes.
"He's still taking good care of me, Master Muln," Anakin protested.
And he was. He hadn't stopped trying. (Never mind what Master Yoda had to say about try; Anakin could see that his Master was trying). He just wasn't very happy anymore.
"He's doing good."
"Doing well."
Anakin wrinkled his nose in displeasure. It wasn't like Garen to correct him on his vocabulary; that was far more Obi Wan's style. A consequence, perhaps, of being Knighted.
"I really don't think he's doing well, Padawan," Garen pressed, holding Anakin by both shoulders now. "I need your help."
Anakin felt Garen probing his shields then, and clamped them down.
"He's just tired, Master Muln," Anakin half-lied. "It's not something you can help. I keep waking him up. I have nightmares."
And this protestation, perhaps because it had been true at a time, seemed to hit its mark. In truth, the reverse was true these days – Anakin woke often to find his Master gone from his pallet. After the first few times, Obi Wan had made Anakin promise not to follow after him, to let him meditate alone.
"I'm sorry, Padawan," Garen murmured, dipping his head apologetically.
And although this talk of nightmares had been a lie, Anakin could not help then but fall into that feeling of guilt – for surely it was his fault that Obi Wan was awake at night, because if it weren't for him he'd be living on Mandalore with Satine and Korkie and they would be happy.
"Maybe I'm too much for him, Master Muln," Anakin professed.
The words brought tears to his eyes.
"He's very, very good to me. But sometimes I worry that maybe I'm too much."
Garen shook his head.
"It's not your fault, Padawan. He loves you."
And Anakin just felt so mixed up, because Obi Wan's love must have been the most precious prize in the galaxy – one that a slave boy from Tatooine surely did not deserve.
"Do you feel the water on your skin, Korkie?"
"Yes, Buir Mama."
"You feel the push and pull of the gentle waves?"
"Yes, Buir Mama."
"Move your breath with the water, Korkie."
They had, after many disastrous attempts at meditation, found peace in the great pond of the palace gardens. Korkie was of an age where he scarcely paused in his running on land, but in the water he was content to float upon his back with his arms spread wide amongst the lily-pads and feel the sun on his face.
"The Force connects you with the water; it connects you with everything around you."
Korkie giggled as an invisible wind seemed to ripple and splash the water.
"We are finding stillness, young one."
And the pond fell quiet again. Korkie's chest rose and fell in the slow pattern that she had taught him.
"Stillness in the water. Stillness in the air. Stillness in the Force. And stillness in your chest and your head, my precious one."
"Stillness in Buir Mama," Korkie contributed, not moving from his meditative posture.
"Thank you, Korkie," Satine acquiesced with a small smile, and closed her own eyes.
She could not feel the Force but she could feel the warmth of the sun and the water on her legs and the damp grass on which she sat. Stillness.
Korkie's father had shown her the path to stillness, had given it to her with the very first touch he laid upon her. He had brought her peace on Draboon – before the venomites, at least – and he had brought her peace when Enceri was engulfed in flames. He had brought her peace in the General's house, on the eve of her revolution, on the day that they had made him.
Korkie mattered more to Satine than anyone or anything in the entire galaxy. She had him here with her. She was keeping him safe. It should be enough. Never mind that she had lost Obi Wan.
But she missed him. She missed him so much her heart truly ached. Every day, she woke up and did her work, and she missed him and missed him and missed him.
I'm very sorry. Sometimes, things have to get worse before they get better - and I promise, better is coming soon.
Siri and Bant don't know what to do, Garen doesn't know what to do, sweet little Anakin doesn't know what to do, but there's someone on Coruscant who does know what Obi Wan needs. Any guesses?
Until next time!
Much love,
S.