Stars in the Darkness - Part Twenty-Five
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Obi-Wan's mouth was like a brand as he moved it slowly over Onara's mouth, burning not only her lips, but her soul. His arms tightened around her, crushing her against his warm, strong chest, his heart beating fiercely against hers. Onara eagerly returned his kiss, just as passionately, just as urgently, and was rewarded with a low, soft moan from Obi-Wan as their kiss deepened.
A tumult of feelings washed over Onara as they kissed and yet, even as she floated within the ecstasy of Obi-Wan's embrace, she tried to sort them out. Desire? Yes, very much so, desire as hot and violent as a supernova. Love? Most assuredly, for she loved this man with all that she was and ever would be.
But, along with those emotions others, less pleasant, began to rear their ugly heads; feelings of guilt and betrayal and the realization she wasn't on Ahjane in one of the fabled gardens of Suheb province under a moon and star-filled sky, but on Coruscant, the capital city of the Republic, where she was not only a senator but a mother and a wife.
With both reluctance and regret, Onara tried to pull away, to break their heated kiss, but Obi-Wan did not release her. He was seared to her, just as surely as if they had been soldered together. The warmth of his body, the heat of his kiss, had made them one and the potential sundering was, Onara sensed, painful to him.
She moved her hands from about his neck, placed them on his shoulders and tried to push him away, but Obi-Wan did not let her go. Instead, he moved his mouth away from hers, but only to slip it along her throat and up to her ear, his arms still locked around her.
"Onara, please, I want you," he moaned, his breath moist and hot in her ear. "I want you, I want you so much."
Onara closed her eyes, tears prickling behind the lids. She kept her hands on his shoulders, but she stood motionless in his arms, listening to his tortured breathing, feeling the rapid throbbing of his heart, unable to ignore the physical evidence of his arousal as he held his body tight against hers.
"I want you too," she whispered, but even as she spoke those words she pushed him firmly away.
Obi-Wan stepped back. Onara looked up at him. His normally light blue-gray eyes were so dark they looked almost black, his handsome face flushed, even as she imagined hers was. Both were breathing heavily, as if they had just run a race or had given in to their passions and were now breathless in the afterglow of their lovemaking.
"I'm sorry, Onara. I don't know what came over me." Obi-Wan reached up and drew a shaking hand through his hair. "I'm acting like some hormonal adolescent."
Onara drew in a deep breath, struggling to regain her composure. "Don't apologize, Obi-Wan. You didn't do anything wrong."
Obi-Wan shook his head. "I didn't ask you here for this. I wanted to see you, to make sure you were all right. Offer my friendship and my services to you." Obi-Wan stopped and his eyes bored deeply into hers, filled with both love and agony.
"But when I see you, when I'm near you..." He reached over and stroked her face with the back of his fingers,"...all I want to do is touch you," he finished softly.
Onara sighed, rubbing her face against his hand. "And I you."
Obi-Wan cupped her cheek, his fingers caressing her skin as he trailed them along her chin. Onara turned her face and, as he had done earlier, kissed his hand, her lips moving over the rough calluses on his palms and fingers, the fine red-gold hair on the back of his hand.
"My love," she whispered. "My love."
"I'm here," he said gently. "As I told you the night of the blessing ceremony. I'm here and I'll always be here."
Onara continued to kiss his hand, her desire for him moving through her body like wildfire. "May the gods of my fathers forgive me, but I want you so much. So much."
"I know." Obi-Wan looked around the holo-generated landscape. "We can't be together here. In reality this is only an empty room. But there is a place..." he stopped and looked over at her, and Onara's breath caught in her throat at the unabashed desire she saw in his face.
"Do you remember my friend, Dex?"
"The one who owns the diner?"
Obi-Wan nodded. He reached inside one of the pouches on his utility belt and pulled out a slipkey.
"Besides the diner, Dex owns a couple of apartment buildings in Coco Town. Unfortunately, however, most of them are now empty. Many are leaving Coruscant and returning to their homeworlds because of the number of successions from the Republic. As a result Dex has lost many tenants. He gave me one of the empty apartments, telling me I could use it as my home away from the Temple. Although," and a wry grin creased Obi-Wan's mouth, "I think he intended I use it for any romantic trysts I might wish to arrange. He worries about me, saying its unnatural for a man to be alone."
Onara's lips curled into a knowing smile. "And have you, Obi-Wan?"
"Have I what?"
"Arranged any romantic trysts?"
"No, not hardly." He looked at the slipkey as he held it between his fingers. Then he looked over at Onara. "There's no one I want but you," he said, causing the blood to sing in her veins. "But, we could..."
Then he stopped and looked at her, his hopeful expression quickly replaced with resignation. He put the slipkey back into the pouch. Onara reached over and took his hand, squeezing it gently as she gazed up into his eyes.
"You're right, Obi-Wan. We could. Very easily. We could go to that apartment and make love, over and over, but at some point we would have to stop. And we would have to leave and come back into the real world where you are a Jedi Knight and master to Anakin, and I am a married woman. And what we would feel afterwards, Obi-Wan, having indulged our passions? Would we feel the same way we feel now?"
Obi-Wan slowly shook his head. Onara released his hand and, for a moment, both were silent, Onara thinking that she needed to go, now, before she changed her mind and let Obi-Wan use that slipkey and take her someplace private where she could once again lie in his arms and experience the magic and the passion of the night of the blessing ceremony.
But, she told herself firmly, she was no longer a naivé girl who had sworn to her father she would not participate in such an archaic and barbaric ritual with a man she had never met. She was a woman now, a senator of her homeworld, and a mother and wife. She could not afford to indulge in her girlish fantasies, no matter how intoxicating they might be, and no matter how much she wanted Obi-Wan.
And she did want him, she realized with a sharp pang as she looked over at him, nothing every beloved feature, every cherished aspect of his being. She wanted him so much that if she didn't leave, and leave now, she would give in to what they both desired, thereby damning them both.
"Onara?"
"Yes, Obi-Wan."
He moved closer and gently took her by the arms. "I want to tell you something. Something important."
Onara smiled, for Obi-Wan's voice was so earnest and solemn it reminded her of Ben when he ached to tell her about something he'd learned from Sinja- Bau.
"The night of the blessing ceremony," Obi-Wan went on, "When your father brought you to me. Do you remember?"
Onara laughed. "How could I forget. I fainted."
Obi-Wan joined in her laughter. "You most certainly did, scaring me and your father to death, I might add." Then his face sobered and his gaze caressed her face.
"When I first saw you, so beautiful, so lovely, clinging to your father's arm and looking at me as if I were the devil himself, I fell in love with you. At that very instance."
Onara was about to scoff, for she had never believed in love at first sight, but when she saw the look on Obi-Wan's face, she bit her lip instead, her heart beating wildly in her chest.
"But...you didn't act like you loved me," she said. "You acted as if I were nothing but a...a nuisance to you."
Obi-Wan shrugged his shoulders, his eyes dancing with laughter. "It wasn't you I considered a nuisance, Onara, but I did find the whole blasted blessing ceremony quite annoying."
A corner of Onara's mouth quirked up. "Well, you knew how I felt about it, Obi-Wan. I made no secret of it."
"No, you most certainly did not," he replied smiling. Then his smile faded away and he sighed, lowering his head as if he were contemplating some important matter. He lifted his face and looked at her.
"Close your eyes," he said.
Onara shook her head, fearing he was going to kiss her again and knowing if he did, she might not be strong enough to resist him this time.
"Don't worry, Onara. I just want to give you something. Something special. Something I've been wanting to give you for a long time. But, you have to close your eyes."
Onara stared at him, but she saw only a gentle yearning in his beautiful eyes. She slowly closed hers. Then she felt the tips of his warm, callused fingers against her temple, stroking her hair.
"Breath, Onara. Breath slowly but evenly. Yes, that's it," Obi-Wan's warm, soft voice directed her. "Now, clear your mind. Try to imagine a landscape as barren and as white as a winter world. See nothing but that and hear nothing but my voice.
Onara did so and, as she did, she felt a tingling in Obi-Wan's fingertips. The sensation was both cold and warm, as if electric currents were passing from his hand and into her head. She shivered but kept her eyes closed, listening to Obi-Wan's low, gentle voice as he helped her mind to open, like a flower beneath the sun's rays. Then Onara felt that current of energy moving into her mind and through her veins, into every part of her body, sweet and warm like honeyed wine. She gasped softly, throwing her head back, Obi-Wan's fingers still on her head.
"What...what are you...doing?" she whispered.
"Shhhh," he said to her, his fingers pressing a little harder into her skull. "Concentrate. Clear your mind. Open yourself to me, Onara."
She took in and released a deep breath, doing as Obi-Wan instructed. Then she felt a soft explosion in her mind, like one of the puff-flowers in the gardens of her estate back on Ahjane. Every spring the puff-flowers would release their thick, yellow seeds into the air, the distended petals finally bursting when the flower could no longer contain the seeds. But, it was not seeds which filled her mind. It was him. Obi-Wan.
"Oh, gods," Onara cried, for she had never felt anything like this. She trembled wildly, her hands reaching up to clasp Obi-Wan by the arms. His fingers pressed harder against her head, and she felt his warm breath moving across her face.
"Onara," Obi-Wan whispered as he channeled more of that energy into her. So this was what it felt like she marveled. The Force. Both warmth and cold, fire and ice, darkness and light, contraction and expansion: an all- pervading awareness of life as it pulsed and throbbed throughout the galaxy; of power as it ebbed and flowed through immeasurable dimensions of space; of time as it moved inexorably toward eternity. And, most of all, of him.
For along with the Force, Onara also felt Obi-Wan. And she knew him then, knew him as completely as she knew herself. In this moment eternal, between one breath and the next, she was a part of him in a way no corporal joining could ever hope to reproduce. For she was Obi-Wan. She was his flesh, his soul, his heart. His fears and his joys, his hopes and his dreams, everything he was and everything he longed to be Onara felt: his fierce devotion to the Jedi Order and his late master, his love for her, Ben and Anakin, his worries about the future, his passionate longing for her, and his loneliness.
A tear slid beneath Onara's eyelid. She had not realized how lonely he was, how much he longed for her and Ben, how torn he was between his love for her and their son and his need to remain loyal to the Order he had served all his life and the master he had both loved and worshipped.
All this and more Onara felt as Obi-Wan fed the Force to her, though she was acutely aware she was only experiencing a modicum of what it must be like for him as a Force sensitive. And this, she also realized with wonderment, was what her darling Ben felt, for he too felt the Force. Like his father.
Onara did not know how long Obi-Wan channeled the Force to her, but when he finally stopped, taking his hands from her temple, she felt dizzy and swayed slightly. Obi-Wan quickly grabbed her.
"Onara, are you all right?"
She took a deep breath to steady herself. Then she looked up at him, her eyes wide with wonder.
"Obi-Wan," she cried. "I never knew. I had no idea." She shook her head in amazement. "What a wondrous gift you have."
Obi-Wan nodded, but there was a deep sadness in his eyes. "A gift? Yes, a gift, but it can also be a curse."
"A curse? I don't understand."
"The Force is an energy field, Onara. It binds the universe together. And, although there is much debate within the philosophical circles of the Jedi Order as to whether the Force is sentient or non-sentient, it is alive, but alive in a way that defies explanation. And being alive, it has a purpose."
A frown creased Onara's forehead. "A purpose? I don't understand, Obi-Wan."
He gave her wry smile. "Neither do I, sometimes. Qui-Gon understood it far better than I for he was a devout adherent of the Living Force."
"The Living Force? What is that?"
Obi-Wan laughed softly and touched her cheek. "Someday, perhaps, I'll explain it to you. Suffice to say, Qui-Gon's way was to follow wherever the Living Force led him, never questioning it as I sometimes did. A time when I sincerely questioned him about it was when we were on a planet called Arorlia. While there we came across a mountain and on the slopes of that mountain we discovered a sacrificial altar to a Silan."
"A Silan?" Onara felt a chill slither down her spine as she repeated the word.
Obi-Wan nodded, his eyes darkening, as if he too had felt what she'd felt. "A creature of the Dark Side. It was my desire to leave immediately, but Qui-Gon insisted on finding the creature and destroying it. And we found it and we destroyed it."
Onara was breathless as she listened to Obi-Wan's story. "What was it like?"
"Huge, hideous, and the Dark Side energy that emanated from it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Our battle with it was very fierce. But we finally defeated it."
Obi-Wan stopped and released a heavy breath. "Afterwards, I asked my master why we had killed the Silan. He said we were Jedi and our lives were not ours to live as we might wish. I understood that, for I had been taught it since I was a child, but I still did not understand why we had to kill the Silan. It was not harming us, I told him, although I was also very much aware many innocent beings had been sacrificed to it. All Qui-Gon would say, however, was that the ways of the Force were often beyond our understanding, and I would be called upon to do many things I did not want to do. Our path is not an easy one to follow, he told me."
Obi-Wan gazed deeply into her eyes. "We must soon part, Onara, and we must never see each other alone like this again. You know this."
Onara's throat tightened and she nodded.
"And I must follow the Force," he said, but it sounded to her as if the words were being ripped out of him. "Wherever it leads me, I must go. And I must remain true to the Jedi Order and do as I vowed to my master I would do. Train Anakin to become a Jedi Knight. For our prophecy tells us he is the one destined to bring the Force back into balance."
Onara nodded, but remained silent, only gazing solemnly up at him. Obi-Wan stared at her, then suddenly grabbed her arms and pulled her close to him, his face inches from hers.
"But I also want you Onara. I want to be your husband and a father to Ben," he said fiercely, his eyes burning into hers. "I can't bear.." he stopped and swallowed heavily. "I can't bear the thought of you with Dalan," he finally said, his voice thick and harsh. "Of his touching you, holding you, loving you. I can't bear the fact my son calls him father." He looked at her, his expression twisted with grief and shame. "Dalan is jealous of me?" he cried in an incredulous voice. "It is I who should be jealous of him, for he has you and Ben and I do not. And I am jealous of him, Onara. I am. And it shames me to feel it and admit it."
Onara reached up and cupped Obi-Wan's face. "Oh, darling, don't be ashamed. There you go again, acting as if you're not human like the rest of us poor souls. Dalan knows he may have me as his wife, but he doesn't, nor shall he ever have my heart. I gave it to you the night of the blessing ceremony. It will always be yours. Always."
"But I can't claim your heart, my love," Obi-Wan cried in a tortured voice as he grabbed her hand. "I must not claim it. The Force." His face twisted, his eyes filled with torment. "I must listen to it and follow it."
"I know," Onara said soothingly. "I know."
She leaned up and gently kissed his face, soft, small kisses across his cheeks, along his chin, over his closed eyelids. Kissed him the way she would kiss Ben when she wanted to soothe his fears and his tears. Obi-Wan pulled her into his arms, but they only held each other this time, with none of the fevered passion of their earlier embrace. Just two people who loved, but could not follow the path of their love. Onara finally drew away, but reluctantly.
"I will never forget your gift, Obi-Wan," she said softly. And she never would. The joining of their souls through the Force would live with her forever.
Obi-Wan leaned down and pressed his lips against her ear. "I wish I could do that with you every night, my love."
Onara shivered, imagining such a spiritual union coupled with the physical one they could have enjoyed as husband and wife. If only their destines had been different, she mourned inside her heart. If only.
Soon after, realizing the world outside the holo-arboretum awaited them both, they parted, with the promise they would see each other again, but never alone. Obi-Wan waited with her on the top of the Crystal Pavilion, the air buffeting them both, until an air-taxi finally came for her.
He had then bid her goodbye, bowing to her as a Jedi Knight should to a member of the Galactic Senate, but she had seen the profound love and yearning in his eyes as he helped her into the air taxi. It had then taken off and she had looked back at Obi-Wan where he stood, his hood drawn over his head, not moving as he watched her depart, until he finally disappeared from her sight amid the spires and canyons of Coruscant's metal skycrape. And then, instead of returning home, for she was far too worked with all that had happened, she had gone to the art museum. And while there, staring raptly at the _khola_ statue, had finally come to her decision.
She would ask Dalan for a dissolution of their marriage. Not to marry Obi- Wan, for that would never happen. His life was the Jedi Order and always would be, but because it was not fair to her or to Dalan for them to remain married. The political reasons for their marriage no longer existed now that Ahjane was a member of the Republic. And she could no longer remain married to a man she did not love.
As for Ben, she knew it would be hard for him, but no good could come of him having to listen to her and Dalan argue. And argue they would, for she could never give him what he so desperately wanted. Her love. She hoped, however, still amazed and grateful at how much Dalan loved Ben, that he would remain in Ben's life as his father, but she could no longer be his wife.
She had been married twice, both times to men she did not love, both times for political reasons. She would never marry again, she vowed. She would concentrate all her energy on being a senator to her people and a mother to Ben. He would be her life now.
And, as the air taxi sped her towards her apartment, she could only hope Dalan would agree with her that this was the best for all concerned.
To be continued....
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Obi-Wan's mouth was like a brand as he moved it slowly over Onara's mouth, burning not only her lips, but her soul. His arms tightened around her, crushing her against his warm, strong chest, his heart beating fiercely against hers. Onara eagerly returned his kiss, just as passionately, just as urgently, and was rewarded with a low, soft moan from Obi-Wan as their kiss deepened.
A tumult of feelings washed over Onara as they kissed and yet, even as she floated within the ecstasy of Obi-Wan's embrace, she tried to sort them out. Desire? Yes, very much so, desire as hot and violent as a supernova. Love? Most assuredly, for she loved this man with all that she was and ever would be.
But, along with those emotions others, less pleasant, began to rear their ugly heads; feelings of guilt and betrayal and the realization she wasn't on Ahjane in one of the fabled gardens of Suheb province under a moon and star-filled sky, but on Coruscant, the capital city of the Republic, where she was not only a senator but a mother and a wife.
With both reluctance and regret, Onara tried to pull away, to break their heated kiss, but Obi-Wan did not release her. He was seared to her, just as surely as if they had been soldered together. The warmth of his body, the heat of his kiss, had made them one and the potential sundering was, Onara sensed, painful to him.
She moved her hands from about his neck, placed them on his shoulders and tried to push him away, but Obi-Wan did not let her go. Instead, he moved his mouth away from hers, but only to slip it along her throat and up to her ear, his arms still locked around her.
"Onara, please, I want you," he moaned, his breath moist and hot in her ear. "I want you, I want you so much."
Onara closed her eyes, tears prickling behind the lids. She kept her hands on his shoulders, but she stood motionless in his arms, listening to his tortured breathing, feeling the rapid throbbing of his heart, unable to ignore the physical evidence of his arousal as he held his body tight against hers.
"I want you too," she whispered, but even as she spoke those words she pushed him firmly away.
Obi-Wan stepped back. Onara looked up at him. His normally light blue-gray eyes were so dark they looked almost black, his handsome face flushed, even as she imagined hers was. Both were breathing heavily, as if they had just run a race or had given in to their passions and were now breathless in the afterglow of their lovemaking.
"I'm sorry, Onara. I don't know what came over me." Obi-Wan reached up and drew a shaking hand through his hair. "I'm acting like some hormonal adolescent."
Onara drew in a deep breath, struggling to regain her composure. "Don't apologize, Obi-Wan. You didn't do anything wrong."
Obi-Wan shook his head. "I didn't ask you here for this. I wanted to see you, to make sure you were all right. Offer my friendship and my services to you." Obi-Wan stopped and his eyes bored deeply into hers, filled with both love and agony.
"But when I see you, when I'm near you..." He reached over and stroked her face with the back of his fingers,"...all I want to do is touch you," he finished softly.
Onara sighed, rubbing her face against his hand. "And I you."
Obi-Wan cupped her cheek, his fingers caressing her skin as he trailed them along her chin. Onara turned her face and, as he had done earlier, kissed his hand, her lips moving over the rough calluses on his palms and fingers, the fine red-gold hair on the back of his hand.
"My love," she whispered. "My love."
"I'm here," he said gently. "As I told you the night of the blessing ceremony. I'm here and I'll always be here."
Onara continued to kiss his hand, her desire for him moving through her body like wildfire. "May the gods of my fathers forgive me, but I want you so much. So much."
"I know." Obi-Wan looked around the holo-generated landscape. "We can't be together here. In reality this is only an empty room. But there is a place..." he stopped and looked over at her, and Onara's breath caught in her throat at the unabashed desire she saw in his face.
"Do you remember my friend, Dex?"
"The one who owns the diner?"
Obi-Wan nodded. He reached inside one of the pouches on his utility belt and pulled out a slipkey.
"Besides the diner, Dex owns a couple of apartment buildings in Coco Town. Unfortunately, however, most of them are now empty. Many are leaving Coruscant and returning to their homeworlds because of the number of successions from the Republic. As a result Dex has lost many tenants. He gave me one of the empty apartments, telling me I could use it as my home away from the Temple. Although," and a wry grin creased Obi-Wan's mouth, "I think he intended I use it for any romantic trysts I might wish to arrange. He worries about me, saying its unnatural for a man to be alone."
Onara's lips curled into a knowing smile. "And have you, Obi-Wan?"
"Have I what?"
"Arranged any romantic trysts?"
"No, not hardly." He looked at the slipkey as he held it between his fingers. Then he looked over at Onara. "There's no one I want but you," he said, causing the blood to sing in her veins. "But, we could..."
Then he stopped and looked at her, his hopeful expression quickly replaced with resignation. He put the slipkey back into the pouch. Onara reached over and took his hand, squeezing it gently as she gazed up into his eyes.
"You're right, Obi-Wan. We could. Very easily. We could go to that apartment and make love, over and over, but at some point we would have to stop. And we would have to leave and come back into the real world where you are a Jedi Knight and master to Anakin, and I am a married woman. And what we would feel afterwards, Obi-Wan, having indulged our passions? Would we feel the same way we feel now?"
Obi-Wan slowly shook his head. Onara released his hand and, for a moment, both were silent, Onara thinking that she needed to go, now, before she changed her mind and let Obi-Wan use that slipkey and take her someplace private where she could once again lie in his arms and experience the magic and the passion of the night of the blessing ceremony.
But, she told herself firmly, she was no longer a naivé girl who had sworn to her father she would not participate in such an archaic and barbaric ritual with a man she had never met. She was a woman now, a senator of her homeworld, and a mother and wife. She could not afford to indulge in her girlish fantasies, no matter how intoxicating they might be, and no matter how much she wanted Obi-Wan.
And she did want him, she realized with a sharp pang as she looked over at him, nothing every beloved feature, every cherished aspect of his being. She wanted him so much that if she didn't leave, and leave now, she would give in to what they both desired, thereby damning them both.
"Onara?"
"Yes, Obi-Wan."
He moved closer and gently took her by the arms. "I want to tell you something. Something important."
Onara smiled, for Obi-Wan's voice was so earnest and solemn it reminded her of Ben when he ached to tell her about something he'd learned from Sinja- Bau.
"The night of the blessing ceremony," Obi-Wan went on, "When your father brought you to me. Do you remember?"
Onara laughed. "How could I forget. I fainted."
Obi-Wan joined in her laughter. "You most certainly did, scaring me and your father to death, I might add." Then his face sobered and his gaze caressed her face.
"When I first saw you, so beautiful, so lovely, clinging to your father's arm and looking at me as if I were the devil himself, I fell in love with you. At that very instance."
Onara was about to scoff, for she had never believed in love at first sight, but when she saw the look on Obi-Wan's face, she bit her lip instead, her heart beating wildly in her chest.
"But...you didn't act like you loved me," she said. "You acted as if I were nothing but a...a nuisance to you."
Obi-Wan shrugged his shoulders, his eyes dancing with laughter. "It wasn't you I considered a nuisance, Onara, but I did find the whole blasted blessing ceremony quite annoying."
A corner of Onara's mouth quirked up. "Well, you knew how I felt about it, Obi-Wan. I made no secret of it."
"No, you most certainly did not," he replied smiling. Then his smile faded away and he sighed, lowering his head as if he were contemplating some important matter. He lifted his face and looked at her.
"Close your eyes," he said.
Onara shook her head, fearing he was going to kiss her again and knowing if he did, she might not be strong enough to resist him this time.
"Don't worry, Onara. I just want to give you something. Something special. Something I've been wanting to give you for a long time. But, you have to close your eyes."
Onara stared at him, but she saw only a gentle yearning in his beautiful eyes. She slowly closed hers. Then she felt the tips of his warm, callused fingers against her temple, stroking her hair.
"Breath, Onara. Breath slowly but evenly. Yes, that's it," Obi-Wan's warm, soft voice directed her. "Now, clear your mind. Try to imagine a landscape as barren and as white as a winter world. See nothing but that and hear nothing but my voice.
Onara did so and, as she did, she felt a tingling in Obi-Wan's fingertips. The sensation was both cold and warm, as if electric currents were passing from his hand and into her head. She shivered but kept her eyes closed, listening to Obi-Wan's low, gentle voice as he helped her mind to open, like a flower beneath the sun's rays. Then Onara felt that current of energy moving into her mind and through her veins, into every part of her body, sweet and warm like honeyed wine. She gasped softly, throwing her head back, Obi-Wan's fingers still on her head.
"What...what are you...doing?" she whispered.
"Shhhh," he said to her, his fingers pressing a little harder into her skull. "Concentrate. Clear your mind. Open yourself to me, Onara."
She took in and released a deep breath, doing as Obi-Wan instructed. Then she felt a soft explosion in her mind, like one of the puff-flowers in the gardens of her estate back on Ahjane. Every spring the puff-flowers would release their thick, yellow seeds into the air, the distended petals finally bursting when the flower could no longer contain the seeds. But, it was not seeds which filled her mind. It was him. Obi-Wan.
"Oh, gods," Onara cried, for she had never felt anything like this. She trembled wildly, her hands reaching up to clasp Obi-Wan by the arms. His fingers pressed harder against her head, and she felt his warm breath moving across her face.
"Onara," Obi-Wan whispered as he channeled more of that energy into her. So this was what it felt like she marveled. The Force. Both warmth and cold, fire and ice, darkness and light, contraction and expansion: an all- pervading awareness of life as it pulsed and throbbed throughout the galaxy; of power as it ebbed and flowed through immeasurable dimensions of space; of time as it moved inexorably toward eternity. And, most of all, of him.
For along with the Force, Onara also felt Obi-Wan. And she knew him then, knew him as completely as she knew herself. In this moment eternal, between one breath and the next, she was a part of him in a way no corporal joining could ever hope to reproduce. For she was Obi-Wan. She was his flesh, his soul, his heart. His fears and his joys, his hopes and his dreams, everything he was and everything he longed to be Onara felt: his fierce devotion to the Jedi Order and his late master, his love for her, Ben and Anakin, his worries about the future, his passionate longing for her, and his loneliness.
A tear slid beneath Onara's eyelid. She had not realized how lonely he was, how much he longed for her and Ben, how torn he was between his love for her and their son and his need to remain loyal to the Order he had served all his life and the master he had both loved and worshipped.
All this and more Onara felt as Obi-Wan fed the Force to her, though she was acutely aware she was only experiencing a modicum of what it must be like for him as a Force sensitive. And this, she also realized with wonderment, was what her darling Ben felt, for he too felt the Force. Like his father.
Onara did not know how long Obi-Wan channeled the Force to her, but when he finally stopped, taking his hands from her temple, she felt dizzy and swayed slightly. Obi-Wan quickly grabbed her.
"Onara, are you all right?"
She took a deep breath to steady herself. Then she looked up at him, her eyes wide with wonder.
"Obi-Wan," she cried. "I never knew. I had no idea." She shook her head in amazement. "What a wondrous gift you have."
Obi-Wan nodded, but there was a deep sadness in his eyes. "A gift? Yes, a gift, but it can also be a curse."
"A curse? I don't understand."
"The Force is an energy field, Onara. It binds the universe together. And, although there is much debate within the philosophical circles of the Jedi Order as to whether the Force is sentient or non-sentient, it is alive, but alive in a way that defies explanation. And being alive, it has a purpose."
A frown creased Onara's forehead. "A purpose? I don't understand, Obi-Wan."
He gave her wry smile. "Neither do I, sometimes. Qui-Gon understood it far better than I for he was a devout adherent of the Living Force."
"The Living Force? What is that?"
Obi-Wan laughed softly and touched her cheek. "Someday, perhaps, I'll explain it to you. Suffice to say, Qui-Gon's way was to follow wherever the Living Force led him, never questioning it as I sometimes did. A time when I sincerely questioned him about it was when we were on a planet called Arorlia. While there we came across a mountain and on the slopes of that mountain we discovered a sacrificial altar to a Silan."
"A Silan?" Onara felt a chill slither down her spine as she repeated the word.
Obi-Wan nodded, his eyes darkening, as if he too had felt what she'd felt. "A creature of the Dark Side. It was my desire to leave immediately, but Qui-Gon insisted on finding the creature and destroying it. And we found it and we destroyed it."
Onara was breathless as she listened to Obi-Wan's story. "What was it like?"
"Huge, hideous, and the Dark Side energy that emanated from it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Our battle with it was very fierce. But we finally defeated it."
Obi-Wan stopped and released a heavy breath. "Afterwards, I asked my master why we had killed the Silan. He said we were Jedi and our lives were not ours to live as we might wish. I understood that, for I had been taught it since I was a child, but I still did not understand why we had to kill the Silan. It was not harming us, I told him, although I was also very much aware many innocent beings had been sacrificed to it. All Qui-Gon would say, however, was that the ways of the Force were often beyond our understanding, and I would be called upon to do many things I did not want to do. Our path is not an easy one to follow, he told me."
Obi-Wan gazed deeply into her eyes. "We must soon part, Onara, and we must never see each other alone like this again. You know this."
Onara's throat tightened and she nodded.
"And I must follow the Force," he said, but it sounded to her as if the words were being ripped out of him. "Wherever it leads me, I must go. And I must remain true to the Jedi Order and do as I vowed to my master I would do. Train Anakin to become a Jedi Knight. For our prophecy tells us he is the one destined to bring the Force back into balance."
Onara nodded, but remained silent, only gazing solemnly up at him. Obi-Wan stared at her, then suddenly grabbed her arms and pulled her close to him, his face inches from hers.
"But I also want you Onara. I want to be your husband and a father to Ben," he said fiercely, his eyes burning into hers. "I can't bear.." he stopped and swallowed heavily. "I can't bear the thought of you with Dalan," he finally said, his voice thick and harsh. "Of his touching you, holding you, loving you. I can't bear the fact my son calls him father." He looked at her, his expression twisted with grief and shame. "Dalan is jealous of me?" he cried in an incredulous voice. "It is I who should be jealous of him, for he has you and Ben and I do not. And I am jealous of him, Onara. I am. And it shames me to feel it and admit it."
Onara reached up and cupped Obi-Wan's face. "Oh, darling, don't be ashamed. There you go again, acting as if you're not human like the rest of us poor souls. Dalan knows he may have me as his wife, but he doesn't, nor shall he ever have my heart. I gave it to you the night of the blessing ceremony. It will always be yours. Always."
"But I can't claim your heart, my love," Obi-Wan cried in a tortured voice as he grabbed her hand. "I must not claim it. The Force." His face twisted, his eyes filled with torment. "I must listen to it and follow it."
"I know," Onara said soothingly. "I know."
She leaned up and gently kissed his face, soft, small kisses across his cheeks, along his chin, over his closed eyelids. Kissed him the way she would kiss Ben when she wanted to soothe his fears and his tears. Obi-Wan pulled her into his arms, but they only held each other this time, with none of the fevered passion of their earlier embrace. Just two people who loved, but could not follow the path of their love. Onara finally drew away, but reluctantly.
"I will never forget your gift, Obi-Wan," she said softly. And she never would. The joining of their souls through the Force would live with her forever.
Obi-Wan leaned down and pressed his lips against her ear. "I wish I could do that with you every night, my love."
Onara shivered, imagining such a spiritual union coupled with the physical one they could have enjoyed as husband and wife. If only their destines had been different, she mourned inside her heart. If only.
Soon after, realizing the world outside the holo-arboretum awaited them both, they parted, with the promise they would see each other again, but never alone. Obi-Wan waited with her on the top of the Crystal Pavilion, the air buffeting them both, until an air-taxi finally came for her.
He had then bid her goodbye, bowing to her as a Jedi Knight should to a member of the Galactic Senate, but she had seen the profound love and yearning in his eyes as he helped her into the air taxi. It had then taken off and she had looked back at Obi-Wan where he stood, his hood drawn over his head, not moving as he watched her depart, until he finally disappeared from her sight amid the spires and canyons of Coruscant's metal skycrape. And then, instead of returning home, for she was far too worked with all that had happened, she had gone to the art museum. And while there, staring raptly at the _khola_ statue, had finally come to her decision.
She would ask Dalan for a dissolution of their marriage. Not to marry Obi- Wan, for that would never happen. His life was the Jedi Order and always would be, but because it was not fair to her or to Dalan for them to remain married. The political reasons for their marriage no longer existed now that Ahjane was a member of the Republic. And she could no longer remain married to a man she did not love.
As for Ben, she knew it would be hard for him, but no good could come of him having to listen to her and Dalan argue. And argue they would, for she could never give him what he so desperately wanted. Her love. She hoped, however, still amazed and grateful at how much Dalan loved Ben, that he would remain in Ben's life as his father, but she could no longer be his wife.
She had been married twice, both times to men she did not love, both times for political reasons. She would never marry again, she vowed. She would concentrate all her energy on being a senator to her people and a mother to Ben. He would be her life now.
And, as the air taxi sped her towards her apartment, she could only hope Dalan would agree with her that this was the best for all concerned.
To be continued....