Sorry for the wait, but you may have to get used to it, for a week, at least. I'm leaving for vacation again, and there aren't any computers where I'm going! Hopefully this will tide you over until next Monday! Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this next chapter!
In the darkness of the cell, Obi-Wan slept. It was a sleep without rest, the kind where you wake up and are even more exhausted then when you shut your eyes. In this sleep, Obi-Wan dreamt. Incoherently, he passed from one to the next, barely remembering the passage through REM. From scenario to scenario, his unconscious mind threw together implausible situations that he would never remember in his waking life, and he slept on.
The last one, he remembered.
He awoke with a gasp, eyelids snapping open, his lungs emptying themselves and then refilling with unbridled force. Confused, he took in his surroundings: the four dark walls, the new tray of food, the little girl that lay next to him, undisturbed by his violent awakening. Recognition came quickly, and his heart ceased thumping in his chest, the sweat beading upon his forehead.
He brought up his hand and rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of what had just happened. The last dream, the one that had woke him so fitfully, had been too vivid, too real to be simply a nightmare. He swore he could still smell the metallic air, taste the blood on his lips. His muscles ached from a fight that hadn't really occurred...
A fight he hoped would never occur.
Obi-Wan could still see it in the shadows of his waking sight; still haunting his anxious mind. In his dream he had been fighting Anakin, and in his dreams it was not Anakin who battled with the fury of the dark side: It had been himself.
Groaning, he got up slowly, and made his way over to the tray that had appeared during the night. Unwrapping his nutrition bar, he ate it slowly and mechanically as he tried to make sense of the images floating about in his mind. He barely noticed as Rowan woke up, rubbing her eyes and blinking as she focused on the room around her.
"Bwan?" she said softly, and he looked up at her, seemingly noticing her presence for the first time. "I have a bad feeling about today."
Her eyes glowed with fright, and even as she spoke, he heard the heavy footfalls reverberate in the passageway of their cellblock, coming closer and closer until finally they reached the door. He had barely enough time to turn and face them, squinting in the harsh light, before they grabbed him and yanked him through the door, leaving a screaming little girl behind.
Through halls and past countless other cells they dragged him, vision fading in and out in the brilliant light, as it always did. Down a set of stairs, past three cells and to the right, as they entered the familiar place of his daily abuse. Roughly, they dropped him to the ground where he collapsed into a heap, moaning as his injured leg went numb with pain. He looked up in time to see the two men leave, and confusion rang clear in his head.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi. A shame we have not really conversed before."
The Jedi Master's breath caught in his chest as he recognized the voice. It was the voice of tyranny and horror; of death and betrayal. Palpatine.
He tried to move, but found himself pinned against the wall by some unseen force. Looking up, he finally saw the Dark Lord of the Sith standing before him, disfigured features hidden by the hood that shadowed his face.
"It is something that I have never really lamented." he replied, from his position upon the floor.
A cackle escaped from snarled purple lips beneath the mask. "Ah, Master Kenobi. I am beginning to understand my last apprentice's interest with you. Pity he was killed before his time. Poor Dooku. He never really understood what part he had to play in it all; he never understood that he was just a pawn."
"In whose game, Palpatine? Yours?"
The dark shadow leant down close to the emissary of the light. "Why, the game of the Force, dear child. We are all but pawns to be moved in a galactic game of chess."
Obi-Wan tried in vain to fight his invisible restraints. "Then what does that make you?"
Deformed lips curled upwards into a malformed grin. "A king, of course. My dear Jedi," said the former Chancellor, changing the subject abruptly, "why do you not escape? I know it is it your capacity to do so, yet you have attempted nothing. Why?"
"Any escape through the means you are insinuating is no escape at all, Palpatine."
"And what is it exactly that I am insinuating, Master Jedi?"
Obi-Wan only stared at him with his striking cerulean eyes, and the Sith laughed once more. As long as Obi-wan stayed true to the values and beliefs of the Jedi Order, escape from his prison was not an option, not by the means in which it could be achieved. For he had knew since the moment they placed the Force collar around his neck that it was no ordinary Force restraint. This one was built to stand against the Light Side, able to withstand the barrage of everything Obi-Wan had to throw against it and still stay standing. However, even the lightest touch of Dark Side energy would snap it in two, freeing him from its grasp.
No, doing this was not an option. He would have to find another way out.
The Chancellor-no, the Emperor- turned away from him and faced the far wall. Obi-Wan lay still against the cool metal and contemplated what to do. If only Anakin… he thought to himself, then wished it away.
"How far would you go, Master Kenobi, to protect those that you love?" asked the hooded man before him, voice muffled.
"Love is an attachment."
A flutter of clothing, and two smouldering embers locked stares with his own eyes. " 'Attachment is forbidden. Passion is forbidden.' Words of the Jedi, are they not?"
He nodded.
A sneer. "Then I suppose it would not interest you that your young friend is scheduled for execution tomorrow, am I correct?"
Obi-Wan's heart jumped, and suddenly a pit of rage erupted within him. "She's but a child! Don't you dare harm her!" He fought once more against the hidden hands that held him back.
Palpatine moved closer, until his face was but mere inches from Obi-Wan's. "If that is not attachment, my dear Kenobi, then what is it?"
The door behind him opened abruptly, and the two guards pulled the Jedi to his feet, the unseen chains gone. The Emperor's burning stare was till upon him as he was dragged out of the room.
"You have the power to save her, Obi-Wan." The words floated through the hall and into his mind as the men returned him to his cell.
"You have the power to save her."
For the first time in his life, Obi-Wan was torn between the light and the dark.