Author's Note: We are almost there!
XxxX
As far as landing a starship under pressure went, Obi-Wan Kenobi had exceeded expectation. Maridian's stomach was still swirling from the transition out of hyperspace, reddened cheeks and a glistening sheen of perspiration over her skin evidence enough of her sheltered existence on Tatooine.
Her eyes scanned the face of the world, the hinges of her mouth undone as she gaped at rolling, pearl-crested mountain ranges and blue sky. Lush arrays of varying shades of emerald, pine, and chartreuse, unlike any she had ever witnessed in body, fanned out before her in stretching forests and grasslands beyond the spaceport. Metropolitan areas were concrete, permastone, steel and irons – there were no dunes of sand, no granules. Seeping into the cockpit was a faraway smell she'd never experience, cold and wet, almost thick with chill and crisp life. The people she saw spoke and translucent puffs of air followed their words, they could see every breath they released.
It was breathtakingly beautiful, unlike anything she'd ever dreamed. With worlds like this, it was difficult to fathom leaving. Returning to Tatooine where endless sky and sand bled from the planet.
The steels of the ship still felt as if they were slicing through time, even as the spaceport came into view beneath a hue of atmospheric haze beneath them. Maridian hadn't been able to tear her eyes from the outer atmosphere, transfixed with distant pinpricks of starlight, until they'd dropped to the planet's surface.
Minutes after they touched down, Kenobi seized her hand and rip[ed her out of the second piloting seat, dragging her from her intimate study of a new world. Stumbling after him, he released her hand once they'd reached the hatch dropping into the second level of the ship. Sonika and Utarri stood across from them, looking down into the opening.
Dressed in a uniform he'd lifted from one of the unconscious pilots, Obi-Wan dipped into a crouch and gestured down the hole. "All right," his gaze popped up to Sonika and Utarri. "Here's how it goes. You three are off this ship before Talor comes aboard." From his pocket he tossed a holodevice to Utarri, who caught it with perfect reflex. "These are coordinates to a safe house in this district. I have a contact there. You will lie low with him until I come for you."
Panic lit up Maridian's veins as she watched him take a glance over his shoulder, hands smoothing over his auburn beard contemplatively. The idea of splitting up after they'd just located their friends sat like simmering vinegar beneath her tongue.
"And if you don't?" She tried to kill the uncertain tremble in her words but it wasn't meant to be as the words spilled from her tongue. "Splitting up cannot be the best viable option, here."
She felt Sonika and Utarri's gaze before she saw it, focused instead on the Jedi Master's dark eyes that pinned her in an immovable trap. Kenobi weighed her words before he crafted his response, slow and careful like he was speaking to a child.
"I'll come back," he assured firmly. Pointing to Utarri, his lilt lifted to one of purpose, "Go now. I'll be behind you once I have resolved things with Talor."
Maridian began to realize she didn't like the way he spoke to them. At all. He stood, Utarri moving to take the ladder down as Obi-Wan watched.
Kenobi's hand on his shoulder halted the Twi'lek's descent. He leaned to whisper something into Utarri's ear that wasn't positive, given the wrinkled look of uncertainty that passed over his expression. He finally shrugged and defeatedly nodded, before dropping down the hatch. Sonika followed, Maridian watching them disappear as if they'd been something out of a recording, robotic and aborted motions that meant nothing.
It was surreal, the entire affair. It took herculean, viable effort not to allow the shaking in her bones to translate to her nerves. She won, but it took every available inch of brainspace.
Obi-Wan hadn't shared his plan outside of sending Utarri and Sonika away and disguising himself in the clothes of bootlicking lackeys. Two hands taking hold of her shoulders semi-shook her into the moment, her brow wrinkling as she tried to determine what emotion currently raced through her blood. Fear had very nearly ebbed into anger, but she didn't find herself angry as her gaze connected with his.
She felt lost, adrift. The certain, decisive look that passed through the forest of his eyes sent something reeling inside her. She didn't understand or like it. Maridian realized for the first time since they'd boarded the ship that her toes were numb, that she lacked clear feeling throughout her anatomy in a way she never had before.
Torture wouldn't been preferable to this buzzing numb. At least then she would feel.
Sideglancing, her eyes fell to the hatch and she heard the trailing footsteps of Utarri and Sonika begin disappearing down the corridor. Her mouth suddenly became filled with cotten, tongue swelling as if the presence of words had become an inflammatory response.
"Go with them," Kenobi's words smacked between her eyes like a stone to her forehead. The words lashed out to her in red. "Go with Sonika and Utarri, Maridian. Wait for me." His eyes briefly and furiously scanned hers.
Maridian felt him stirring in the Force like a dark shadow trying to push her away from a precipice.
It was so final and decided that it rang like the heavy doors of a locked fortress closing. The look on his face, set jaw and avalanched brows, bore the traces of an equally unmovable wall. Maridian could see he was set in his words and it would take a war to undo them. A war she was willing to wage.
He does not get to decide for me, she laid the boundaries of her own determination, I am not his padawan. I am not Anakin Skywalker, and I am not my mother that the Jedi orders around. He doesn't get to undo everything himself, Her back teeth touched as her jaw stitched together with the barbed wires of determination.
A punch of rage set off the muscle in her jaw as she wrenched her arm out of his hand.
"No," she regarded him with a twisted look of disgust, his statement marking him with a degeneracy she'd never imagined projecting, "Absolutely not. I'm coming with you." Anger steeled her words and her teeth all but ground together to produce the statement.
He slumped in defeat of the idea, though bore the expression of a man who had anticipated her refusal. Obi-Wan went to reach for her hand again but she sidestepped, deep frown lines pulling her brows together. He looked sympathetic, like he wanted to compromise but was unwilling to wholeheartedly do so.
"Maridian," he murmured.
She cut her hand through the air. "No. I am coming with you, and there is nothing you can say that will sway my decision." She moved to step around him to the hatch, but he cut her off with quicksilver speed. Her eyes flicked up at him, sizing up his dedication to their argument. "Stand aside, Kenobi." The name dripped like cold steel from her vocal chords.
He grimaced from her lashing. "This won't end how you think –"
Maridian struggled to control her breathing. "Yes it will!" She insisted, balling her fists at her side. "It will end exactly how I think because I will be the one to end this with Talor. This is because of my decisions, Obi-Wan – not yours. This is my mess and I will clean it up," she cut a pointed finger at him and took a step forward, narrowing her gaze. "Just because you feel responsible for Anakin, for my mother, or for the Jedi Order doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself. We do this together." Her chest rose and fell with every painful enucleation of the words. They ran together like a haze in her mind. Briefly she couldn't even remember everything she'd said.
When he said nothing, she kept it short so her words were hard and fuming. "We fight, we stand together, otherwise we are nothing." At least, she tried keeping it short. The next statement came out in a bite as she scanned his eyes. "I am not someone you have to save, Obi-Wan Kenobi."
He stared at her hard, the peaks of her shallow breathing the only sound between them. Her gaze dropped from his face to her boots. She shoved by him, brushing shoulders, until his hand dropped to take hers. Her fingers fell against his as if they were boneless and without purpose, floating through the air. She glanced down at them.
For a moment, Maridian wondered if he could feel her heart trip-hammering. Eyes lifting to consider him, she found her husband too was studying their hands. His smallest finger twitched, as if he were mindful of how fragile this moment was.
"You aren't someone I have to rescue. For the first time, Mardian Hail, you are someone I want to save."
He didn't look up. Instead, he carried the demur of a man who had just dropped a life's worth of burden off his chest. Very quickly he became a younger man, a child even, who had stepped into being seen from the shadows and didn't know how to understand the feeling.
She had the brief thought that who knew how long Obi-Wan Kenobi had been fighting others. Fighting for something he didn't understand or want. Fighting as a body for a cause he was otherwise nameless to. How long he'd cast aside his own desires for the nameless other.
Tears brimmed in her eyes, hot and burning, and she stepped closer to him. Life bled into her hand again and she took his with purpose. Reaching out with her other hand, she cupped his cheek. She knew this feeling. For so long she'd been a Hail daughter, the mother figure of sisters, a working body. She had carried the banner of her family on unready and ununderstanding shoulders.
She understood getting lost. It was hard to come back, but it wasn't impossible. Finding him had started the journey back for her. She hadn't realized that she had been his way back, too. She was something he'd wanted.
It explained everything. The betrayal, the uncertainties. Obi-Wan was reconciling that it was natural to want and to feel and to just obey. He was becoming a man, not just a body.
And he didn't want to lose the one thing that had brought him here. Her.
She choked on a breath and stepped up to his side, cupping a hand on his shoulder. Pressing her cheek against his bicep, she closed her eyes. Giving his hand a firm squeeze, she moved to press a soft kiss beneath his ear.
She spoke against his ear, "My name isn't Maridian Hail anymore. I am Maridian Kenobi." She spoke firmly but gently. "And I love you. Remember that out of everything that has happened in your life, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you have purpose. You aren't alone." Her voice dropped into a low tone.
He shook his head and drew in a nearly-shaking breath. "But this, I –"
"Let me help you." Her voice was pointed but soft, determined. She moved to stand before him and his eyes opened, first staring at the floor, then slowly lifting to consider her. "You don't have to do this alone anymore. It isn't required of you, Obi-Wan. I'm here. Let me help you."
It was unreal to her how some words finally conveyed the final point. She saw the moment it connected with him, the instant light chased away the lingering dark thoughts. He shook out a final, unsteady breath and closed his eyes. She saw the years he'd been holding on, holding on by just a thread.
He took her hand and interlaced their fingers tightly. With a final nod, he checked the lightsaber at his side and his gaze swept over her.
"Alright," he nodded, once. "Come with me," was all he said before guiding her down the hatch.
XxxX
"Keep your gaze down."
Maridian folded her hands in front of her within the folds of Kenobi's cloak, the ramp trembling as their footfalls rattled the steel. Light sliced through the hood of the cloak, warming her face as she inhaled a deep breath of cool, wet air unlike anything she'd ever experienced. Something fresh and crisp brightened her tongue and invigorated her blood. It was cold.
She bristled not just from the chill but from Obi-Wan's exaggerated shove of her shoulder as they worked down the ramp.
Foot traffic and the hustle of the Alderaanian spaceport cut through the air, voices clear and dialogue easily understood to the ear that took the time to listen. Movement and an array of colorful textures stirred her periphery vision even as she kept her stare pointed to her feet. There was no dust for the hem of the cloak to rustle, no cloud kicked up from her feet as she stepped onto smooth stone. One flick of her eyes upward showed towering, modern buildings with a backdrop of jagged peaks far off into the distance.
Thousands of acres of this green, this crisp and clear cool air stood between her and the freedom of mountains she'd never imagined seeing. It was miraculous. How a world could look like this….
Obi-Wan stepped around her to grab her arm. He'd pulled the scarf of his uniform up over his nose, hat pulled low over his eyes. Her heartbeat tripped up when two lackeys leaning against the ship stood at attention and hustled over with purpose. She steeled her shoulders, firmly studying the floor.
"I have orders to take her to Talor immediately," Obi-Wan disguised his voice with a rough, uncultured edge as if he'd been born doing it.
"The other two?" one asked skeptically.
He thumbed over his shoulder. "Secured in lower cargo. We're taking them back as soon as we're finished here." The two lackeys nodded and exchanged looks before one hustled up the ramp. The other passed Kenobi a holodevice, which he accepted with an open hand.
"Coordinates to the drop," he gestured with a nod to the device as he backpedaled up the ramp, "Matham and Atonas will meet ya there." He turned on his heel, and Maridian cast a look over her shoulder to watch him disappear.
Once out of sight, she turned and dropped the hood. The sounds of scuffle couldn't have drawn the attention of a bustling spaceport even if the two men had cried out, the shaking of the ship hardly discernible as Obi-Wan jogged back up the ramp to meet Utarri, already outfitted in the one lackey's shirt and blaster. Sonika tied a scarf around her neck and lifted it over her nose before draping a holster over her shoulder.
Giving the bay one more look, Obi-Wan raced down the ramp and swatted the exterior controls. With a mechanical cry the ramp began to lift back into place. Sonika moved to Maridian and wrapped her in a thick, hard hug before she could even react. She hugged her friend back fully, resting her chin on her shoulder.
"Stay alive," Sonika said quietly against her ear.
"You as well. I'll be seeing you," she gave her friend a squeeze before Utarri passed by, put a hand on Sonika's shoulder, and bid her follow.
The Twi'lek moved away from her easily, and Maridian watched them take to the traffic of the spaceport easily, blending with the mass of species milling about the space. Within seconds, they were indistinguishable from the audience. Maridian felt her heart swell with pride and relief before crushing uncertainty filled the space in her chest.
Obi-Wan came up behind her and she glanced beside to watch him drape the end of his tunic over the hilt of his lightsaber. He fingered the communication device as his eyes scanned the crowd of people before his hand came to her elbow. He briskly escorted her into foot traffic, his body brushing against hers, unwilling to break contact. Once in the crowd of people, they kept their gazes low.
She'd almost entirely lost track of the direction they'd ventured from until Obi-Wan steered her into an alley just outside the spaceport gates. He opened his palm and switched on the holodevice, which revealed a miniaturized layout of the city. One of the massive buildings across the city pulsed with a blue light, indicating a location of importance.
She watched his face fall from one of determination to utter confusion to finally despair. It lasted only momentarily before his eyes lifted to her across the holomap, lines of his brow set deeply. He didn't have to explain that he didn't like the coordinates. It was plain.
Maridian had the thought to ask but instead her jaw clamped closed.
He volunteered freely. "It's House Organa," his voice carried a low rumble equivalent to heavy thunder. The holo clicked off and he stowed it away in his mess of clothing before the features of his face softened into confusion. "What in blazes does he want with Bail?"
She recognized the name Organa from their earlier discussion with one of the pilots. She turned on the balls of her feet to glance back out into the city, streams of people passing by the mouth of their hiding spot. She hadn't realized her palms were sweating until Obi-Wan cursed behind her, darted around her body and snagged her hand.
She almost tripped over the hem of the cloak as she staggered behind him. His breathing was ragged as they burst into foot traffic, Obi-Wan searching the crowd frantically as a parent would a lost child. A passerby clambered into her and pushed her up against Kenobi's back. Maridian could feel the wild drum of his heart and the uneven tone of his breath in his chest.
"We have to move," he said in a barked whisper over his shoulder. "Stay close and don't let go of me." He tightened his grip on her hand and pulled her along, Maridian's feet shuffling against the smooth pavement of the street to keep up with him.
He cut through the crowd like a man with purpose, his feet weaving certain paths across the streets with every turn and twist they made. Maridian could taste her own sweat as it dripped freely down her face, saturating every ounce of clothing touching her body.
How she'd managed to sweat in such cool air she didn't understand, but she started shivering from the cold despite the flaming heat radiating in her chest.
Obi-Wan guided her to a less busy part of the district, as if he'd spent his life on these streets amidst these buildings. The dull thrum of city eventually fell away to the blood pulsing through Maridian's ears. It took considerable effort to match the pace of a seasoned Jedi on the warpath, but she'd determined to do it, focusing one foot in front of the other and much of her brain power on the simple idea to take deep, filling breaths. She'd long since abandoned the notion of trying to find landmarks and learn direction – the world was as foreign as a dream and Obi-Wan was her only way out of it.
Maridian realized they were in the political sector when a massive tittering banner stroked the wind loudly, snapping attentively as a cool breeze rolled through the city. She drew the cloak around her against the wind but couldn't tear her eyes from the elegant tapestry hanging above. Her eyes drifted from there to the huge, elegant building stretching leagues into the sky, as if it had been standing there since the dawn of time. It competed with the stunning regality of the mountains, which were etched into a mural spanning its titanic walls.
It carried all the air of a political arena. She would've stopped to stare and consider its beauty at length, had Kenobi not tugged her along to exchange words with a posted guard. He considered them with a quirked, skeptical brow, until Obi-Wan obviously whispered the right amount of words that prompted an enlightened look on his face. He consulted a holoreader, scrolling furiously."
The man's eyes fell from her husband to her, then back. "Senator Organa isn't here, Master Kenobi," her mouth parted to regard Obi-Wan so casually giving out his title in a world she didn't know, but the man spoke with such reverence that she realized they were in sanctuary here, " No one has seen him since yesterday's morning session. He's due to return back to Coruscant," he glanced down to the roster, "tomorrow. What can I do to assist you?" He spoke urgently, eyes moving about the area around them considerately.
Maridian had the distinct sense they were not welcome in the open air. Perhaps not unwelcome as much as unsafe, it was plain on the man's face. Her throat constricted and she clutched tighter to Kenobi's hand, who gave it a reassuring squeeze. She released a pent up breath and glanced over her shoulder, watching for whatever inevitable presence could see them.
"Nothing," Obi-Wan inserted with a small quirk of appreciation. "You didn't see us, have never seen us on Alderaan." Maridian watched his hand pass over the man's face, deliberately. Immediately the guard's gaze softened and his posture slackened, as if he'd just been faced with the most reassuring news in the world. His eyes passed into a dullness he hadn't maintained even when they'd approached him.
"I haven't seen you on Alderaan before," he stated robotically, in monotone. Horrified, Maridian looked between the guard and Kenobi, who was already turning away from him to pull her back down the volley of stairs they'd already climbed.
"What did you do to him?" She squeaked, following after him in staccato steps. Obi-Wan chuckled as he hustled, looking gleefully restrained as he shrugged a shoulder and turned to help her off the last step. She batted aside the cloak and hopped off, his eyes skating over her as he walked backwards.
"As much as I'd love to enlighten you on the finer points of Jedi mind tricks, we haven't the time," his smile fell away, "We have to find Bail. I need to know why Talor has associations with him." He hurried her along after him, Maridian trying to ignore the burning pain in her lungs and the stitch forming in her side.
As if this world had grown knowing him he guided her up and down streets, cutting through markets and side alleys on light feet. Maridian had never felt so exhausted and she had traversed deserts. Cool air was far more painful to breathe and she'd become disillusioned with seeing her breath with each heave of air. Her toes were cold within her boots and the sheen of her sweat was a constant reminder that they were not on Tatooine as she hurriedly followed Kenobi.
Finally they came upon the outskirts of the city, to a massive home. Forest stretched far out beyond it, the mountains striking peaks high above them now. Soft sounds of nature ruminated in the air beyond the estate, which was planted on the perimeter of the city. Maridian briefly considered that of course the home they'd been looking for would be the last one in the entire district, but quickly disregarded the idea as Obi-Wan released her hand.
Her eyes followed up the massive structure as they rounded the building, toward the back. Obi-Wan kept low and guided her through a finely trimmed hedge bordering the stairs leading to an elegantly massive back door, with guards posted on either side. From it flowed a stone pathway slicing through the forest floor, cutting away into the lush, beckoning forest canopy beyond the city. How one property could be part of a city but also offer the luxury of wilderness baffled her. On Tatooine you either lived in the villages or cities or staked your claim beyond, in the sands. Cities had walls, villages had perimeters, and homes were built into neither.
Here, the homes were the walls, standing like sentries.
Maridian's gaze had strayed far enough to find that Obi-Wan was no longer beside her, instead catching the body of a now unconscious guard splayed lazily in his arms. He lowered the man to the ground before dragging him into the bushy hedge, as if the man hadn't even been posted outside the door to begin with. Sweeping up the man's weapon, he somehow managed to peg her in the landscaping, gesturing for her to follow.
She darted out of the bush, batting aside her cloak to rush up the steps. Obi-Wan pressed the weapon into her hand, flattened against the door, and considered the control panel beside her. Before he could intervene she stepped in front, took in a breath, and felt the swirl of the Force sweep through her as her hand passed before the panel.
This she could do. She had the funny thought that this was how Obi-Wan had discovered her, at the panel of a door. The irony was almost laughable.
Flashing green, an approving beep disengaged the door's mechanics and they slipped inside House Organa, in much the way she imagined an actual Jedi Master would.
XxxX
She felt him in the Force for a fleeting instant before he blinked out of existence. Jedi were all that way, a brief flicker of hope in the darkness of the Force before they fell into nothingness. Void of meaning, lacking substance. It had been one of the reasons they were so easy to kill so long ago, and she ventured to guess it contributed to the extinction of the species in recent days.
Aside from the veil of fear that blanketed the space of Organa's office, this was workable. Fear in lesser, non-sensitives was inevitable. They didn't understand, and never could. Long ago she had made peace with fear and it's baleful presence in the atmosphere about lesser individuals. It was easily manipulated and made them all the swifter to obey. If only it were so easy with Kenobi and his peddling bridge that accompanied him. Her presence in the Force was small, hardly discernable. But strong, like a frond unwilling to bend beneath strong winds.
How tragic that she would die before her time. Such was the way of things.
"He's here."
Bail's face darkened to a shade of hatred she hadn't seen manifested before in the Senator. His wife curled against the wall, holding the swaddle of their infant. She felt the room stand on end, a fresh air of terror snapping the lines of the room into a swirl of obedience. It roused a pleased chuckle in her chest as her hand curled around the steely lines of her saber.
It was time for Obi-Wan Kenobi to die. And all his legacies with him.